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PEACE  GIVEN  AS  THE 
WORLD  GIVETH 


PEACE 


GIVEN  AS  THE  WORLD  GIVETH 

OR 

THE  PORTSMOUTH  TREATY 

AND  ITS 

FIRST  YEAR'S  FRUITS 


BY 

JOHN  BIGELOW 


NEW  YORK 
BAKER  &  TAYLOR  CO. 

1907 


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PEACE  GIVEN  AS  THE 
WORLD  GIVETH 


PEACE  GIVEN  AS  THE  WORLD 
GIVETH^ 

While  sojourning  with  my  family  at  a 
watering-place  on  the  eastern  frontier  of 
France  in  the  summer  of  1905,  nmiors 
reached  me  through  the  public  prints  that  our 
President  was  permitting  himself  to  listen  to, 
if  not  seriously  to  entertain,  the  purpose  of 
attempting  negotiations  for  a  suspension  of 
the  war  between  the  empires  of  Russia  and 
Japan.  Deeming  such  a  step  on  his  part 
most  indiscreet  and  unlikely  to  be  successful, 
except  upon  terms  which  any  representative 
of  a  republic  would  have  reason  to  deplore,  I 
wrote  the  following  letter: 

DivoNNE  LES  Bains 

June  3,  1905. 
My  dear  Mr,  President: 

You  have  the  ear  of  Dionysius,  but  you  do 
not  use  it  for  the  same  purpose.    The  tyrant 

^ Peace  I  leave  with  you;  my  peace  I  give  unto  you;  not  as 
the  world  giveth  give  I  unto  you.    John  xiv.  27. 

1^1 


PEACE   GIVEN 

of  Syracuse  used  it  to  learn  what  his  people 
did  not  wish  him  to  know.  You  use  it  only  to 
learn  what  your  people  wish  you  to  know. 
There  you  have  my  excuse  for  trying  to  secure 
your  attention  for  a  few  moments. 

You  will  have  observed  that  the  day  follow- 
ing the  arrival  of  the  news  of  the  prostration 
of  the  Russian  naval  power  on  the  Pacific  the 
market  value  of  all  financial  securities  ad- 
vanced throughout  the  commercial  world. 
This  advance  was  based  upon  the  probabilities 
of  an  early  peace  which  you  are  looked  to  as 
the  Deus  ex  Machina  through  whom  it  is  to 
be  negotiated. 

What  I  venture  to  suggest  is  that  you  be  in 
no  hurry  to  entertain  appeals  of  that  kind, 
from  any  quarter.  The  time  for  a  peace  of 
any  sort,  and  especially  for  a  durable  peace 
which  would  unite  the  people  and  government 
of  Russia,  the  only  kind  of  peace  with  the 
negotiation  of  which  you  can  aflford  to  have 
anything  to  do,  is  still,  in  my  judgment,  quite 
remote. 

There  is  no  evidence  that  either  of  the  bel- 
ligerent governments  or  their  people  desire 

1^1 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

peace  upon  any  such  terms  as  are  now  attain- 
able. The  peace  that  might  satisfy  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  Czar  and  those  who  would 
negotiate  it  would  be  as  hateful  to  the  en- 
lightened and  probably  to  the  unenlightened 
population  of  Russia  as  the  restoration  of  the 
Bourbons  by  the  Allied  Powers  after  the  bat- 
tle of  Waterloo  was  to  the  French  people ;  as 
the  restoration  of  the  Stuarts  was  after  the 
death  of  Cromwell. 

On  the  other  hand,  an  indefinite  prolonga- 
tion of  the  war  would  be  preferable  to  the 
Czar  and  his  entourage  to  any  such  conditions 
of  peace  as  the  people  would  be  satisfied  with, 
or  such  only  as  you  could  afford  as  the  Presi- 
dent of  a  republic  and  a  Christian  to  recom- 
mend. 

Every  one  who  believes  in  an  overruling 
Providence  must  admit  that  the  sacrifices  of 
life,  to  say  nothing  of  property,  in  this  war,  as 
indeed  in  all  wars,  is  expiatory  of  correspond- 
ing wrongs  and  injustice  on  the  part  of  one 
or  both  of  the  belligerents.  There  are  no  signs 
yet  that  the  sacrifices,  enormous  and  perhaps 
unprecedented  thus  far  in  human  history  as 

1:5] 


PEACE   GIVEN 

they  are,  have  yet  reached  or  apparently  ap- 
proached the  level  of  the  evils  and  foul  in- 
humanities which  are  to  be  expiated. 

The  rulers  of  Russia  for  the  last  two  cen- 
turies have  been  to  Europe  what  the  sons  of 
Anakim  were  to  the  Hebrew  emigrants  from 
Egypt  in  the  time  of  Moses,  a  menace  and  a 
terror.  We  have  heard  all  our  lives  the  cry, 
"Who  can  stand  before  these  sons  of  Anak?" 
From  their  first  emergence  in  history  as  a 
nation  they  have  preyed  upon  all  neighboring 
territories  like  a  cancer,  and  by  predatory 
habits  compelled  the  rest  of  the  civilized 
world  not  only  to  go  constantly  armed  but  to 
provide  weapons  of  ever-increasing  number 
and  costliness  for  self-defense.  It  would 
seem  as  though  the  beginning  of  the  end  of 
this  international  terror  was  at  hand,  but  I 
think  those  have  read  history  to  little  purpose 
who  think  the  end  itself  and  a  durable  peace 
is  at  hand. 

The  Master  who  is  a  silent  party  to  all  wars 
is  not  worrying  about  the  holders  of  Russian 
securities  in  St.  Petersburg  and  Frankfort 
and  Paris  and  London,  or  in  Wall  Street. 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

He  is  not  worrying  either  about  the  slaughter 
of  His  creatures  whose  blood  is  staining  the 
soil  of  Manchuria  and  the  waters  that  bathe 
the  shores  of  Korea.  He  is  thinking  rather 
of  the  government  and  institutions  to  be 
provided  for  the  training  of  countless  future 
generations  for  a  higher  seat  in  His  King- 
dom. 

Such  changes  in  a  population  to  be  counted 
not  by  millions  but  by  hundreds  of  millions 
are  not  wrought  in  a  day  or  a  year.  They  re- 
quire more  frequently  centuries.  The  Ameri- 
can colonists,  in  the  main  a  very  superior  class 
of  people,  had  to  endure  the  caprices  and  tyr- 
anny of  a  crazy  monarch  for  nearly  fifty  years 
before  they  were  brave  enough,  strong  enough, 
and  wise  enough  to  assert  their  independence. 
We  had  to  endure  for  more  than  a  century 
and  then  fight  the  bloodiest  and  most  costly 
war  of  which  history  had  then  any  record,  be- 
fore we  were  able  to  eliminate  from  our  Con- 
stitution the  shameful  privilege  of  property 
representation  which  was  shared  only  by  a 
minority  of  our  States  and  population;  an 
inequality  which  was  utterly  unreconcilable 


PEACE   GIVEN 

with  the  elementary  principles  of  popular 
sovereignty. 

Beginning  with  the  revolution  in  France  of 
1793,  succeeded  by  perpetual  agitation  and 
repeated  political  convulsions  which  lasted  for 
nearly  a  century,  and  then  only  after  a  fear- 
fully bloody  dynastic  war,  did  the  French 
people  succeed  in  the  expulsion  or  extinction 
of  the  several  races  of  her  oppressors  and  in 
the  establishment  of  a  constitutional  popular 
government  which  has  already  endured  more 
than  three  times  as  long  as  the  average  dura- 
tion of  her  dynastic  governments  for  the  three 
preceding  centuries.  What  it  took  France 
nearly  a  century  to  accomplish,  who  can  name 
the  limits  of  the  time  it  may  take  Russia  to 
accomplish,  with  fully  twenty  times  the  popu- 
lation that  France  had  in  1793,  that  can 
neither  read  nor  write  (and  who  probably 
never  had  an  ancestor  that  could) . 

Who  can  suppose  that  with  all  the  new 
facilities  of  intercourse  and  the  new  forces  at 
the  service  of  the  world  to-day,  steam,  elec- 
tricity, the  telegraph  and  telephone,  the 
growing  commercial  and  alimentary  depen- 


AS  THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

dence  of  nations  upon  each  other,  that  Russia 
can  reach  the  pohtical  conditions  under  which 
France  is  now,  for  the  first  time  in  her  history, 
prosperous  and  content,  in  a  much  briefer 
period  than  France  required  for  her  enfran- 
chisement? But  there  is  no  position  short  of 
that  with  which  Russia  can  now  be  expected 
ever  to  be  content,  and,  if  the  lessons  of  his- 
tory are  to  be  trusted,  restlessness,  agitations, 
revolutions,  must  be  the  warp  or  the  woof  of 
her  history  until  her  people  rule  their  govern- 
ment instead  of  being  ruled  by  it. 

Now  with  suitable  apologies  for  the  many 
superfluous  words  I  have  used,  and  to  make  a 
long  story  short,  I  merely  wish  you  to  con- 
sider whether  you  as  a  Republican  President 
can  recommend  to  Russia  any  terms  or  con- 
ditions of  peace  which  she  would  think  of 
accepting  or  which  any  of  the  dynastic  powers 
of  Europe  would  consent  to  her  accepting; 
and  whether  you  care  to  place  your  Adminis- 
tration in  like  relations  to  the  people  of  Russia 
— now  struggling  hopefully  for  a  free  and 
enlightened  government— that  the  English 
and  French  governments  occupied  towards 

[93 


PEACE   GIVEN 

ours  in  1863-4,  when  they  were  trying  to 
force  President  Lincoln  to  purchase  peace  by 
a  surrender  of  more  than  half  of  our  national 
territory  to  be  desecrated  to  the  perpetuation 
of  chattel  slavery. 

I  remain,  Mr.  President,  with  sincere  re- 

'      Your  very  obedient  servant, 

John  Bigelow. 

His  Excellency  Theodore  Roosevelt, 
President. 


As  I  was  taking  my  afternoon  walk  to  the 
post-ofRce  with  the  foregoing  letter  in  my 
pocket,  I  encountered  a  friend  quite  unex- 
pectedly who  had  just  driven  up  from  a  dis- 
tance to  call  upon  me.  In  the  course  of  our 
conversation,  as  he  was  a  person  as  well  ac- 
quainted with  the  policies  and  type  of  the 
Washington  government  as  any  one  of  my 
acquaintance,  I  ventured  to  express  to  him 
my  hope  that  the  President  would  turn  a  deaf 
ear  to  any  solicitations  of  the  kind  referred  to 

DO] 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

in  the  preceding  note,  and  I  went  so  far  as  to 
say  that  I  did  not  deem  it  possible  that  a 
Republican  president  could  consistently  sug- 
gest any  terms  of  peace,  at  that  stage  of  the 
war,  which  the  imperial  government  of  Russia 
could,  or  would,  accept.  The  answer  that  I 
received  surprised  me:  "To  have  Russia  re- 
ject our  terms  is  just  what  we  want;  that  will 
make  us  solid  with  Japan." 

This  remark  satisfied  me  that  it  was  too 
late  for  such  a  letter  as  I  had  written  to  do 
any  good.  I  did  not  post  it.  It  would  have 
been  originally  addressed  to  Mr.  Hay,  then 
Secretary  of  State,  had  his  health  permitted 
him  to  be  in  his  place  at  Washington,  and  in 
a  condition  to  give  attention  to  business  at  the 
time  it  was  written.  He  died  on  the  first  of 
July,  and  Elihu  Root,  of  New  York,  was  per- 
suaded to  become  his  successor. 

So  soon  as  I  learned  that  Mr.  Root  had 
taken  the  oath  of  his  new  ofiice,  I  wrote  to  him 
the  following  letter: 


en] 


PEACE  GIVEN 

The  Squirrels 

Highland  Falls  on  Hudson,  New  York 

July  14, 1905 
Hon.  Elihu  Root, 

My  dear  Mr.  Secretary: 

Nothing  which  Mr.  Roosevelt  has 
done  since  he  became  our  Chief  Magistrate 
has  commended  him  so  much  to  my  respect, 
nor  done  so  much  to  mitigate  my  sense  of  the 
loss  which  his  administration  and  the  country 
have  sustained  in  the  death  of  Mr.  Hay,  as 
your  selection  for  his  successor.  I  imite  my- 
self with  the  great  majority  of  the  nation  in 
thanking  you  for  yielding  to  the  President's 
appeal.  I  should  not  trouble  you,  however, 
with  this  declaration,  which  I  am  sure  will 
convey  no  news  to  you,  if  I  did  not  esteem  it 
a  proper  introduction  to  some  views  to  which 
you  may  not  have  had  occasion  to  attach  as 
much  importance  as  I  do. 

I  was  in  Paris  when  the  wail  of  the  bankers 
from  all  the  great  financial  centers  of  Europe 
and  America  went  up  to  Mr.  Roosevelt  to  use 

CIS] 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

his  influence  to  stop  the  Russo-Japanese 
War,  without  a  thought  on  their  part,  I  pre- 
sume, of  the  purposes  which,  under  Provi- 
dence, that  war  was  intended  and  destined  to 
serve,  but  with  a  single  eye  to  the  protection 
of  their  securities,  at  least  until  they  could  be 
unloaded  upon  the  innocent  public.  Having 
in  mind  the  far-reaching  lessons  taught  by 
the  several  anti-dynastic  wars  which  made 
Cromwell  President  of  Great  Britain  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  Washington  President 
of  the  United  States  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury; which  sent  Louis  XVI  of  France,  only 
a  few  years  later,  to  the  guillotine;  which  in 
the  nineteenth  century  made  two  French  em- 
perors captives  and  exiles,— and  in  each  of 
these  bloody  crises  helped  to  teach  the  nations 
that  a  government  of  the  people,  by  the  peo- 
ple, for  the  people,  was  the  only  system  for 
the  government  of  men  that  could  endure, — 
I  felt,  as  the  President  was  so  much  younger 
than  I,  that  I  might  take  the  liberty  of  cau- 
tioning him  against  overlooking  the  vital  in- 
terest of  the  people  of  Russia  in  this  war,  and 
of  weighing  well,  not  only  the  advantages  of 


PEACE   GIVEN 

terminating  it,  but  also  possibly  the  far 
greater  advantages  of  its  continuance,  until 
at  least  the  rights  of  the  Russian  people  were 
as  well  secured  or  better  than  the  rights  of 
their  beasts  of  burden. 

While  my  mind  was  exercised  by  these 
thoughts  I  fell  into  conversation  with  a  prom- 
inent metropolitan  journaUst,  who  chanced 
to  be  in  Paris  at  that  time,  in  which  I  in- 
timated a  doubt  whether  the  President  of  our 
Republic  ought  to  be  in  any  binary  about 
laundering  Europe's  dirty  linen,  more  espe- 
cially as  neither  of  the  belligerents  had  ex- 
pressed any  desire,  formally  or  informally, 
for  his  intervention;  and  that  any  terms  of 
peace  which  a  Republican  President  could 
reconmiend  with  propriety  the  present  gov- 
ernment of  Russia  would  commit  suicide  by 
accepting.  My  friend's  reply  was:  "To  have 
Russia  refuse  our  efforts  to  make  peace  is 
just  what  we  want,  because  that  will  make  us 
solid  with  Japan";  implying  that  the  Mi- 
kado's friendship  was  worth  more  to  us  now 
than  that  of  any  other  nation. 

As  I  was  expecting  to  return  home  in  a  few 


AS  THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

days  I  held  the  letter  by  me,  and  on  my  ar- 
rival I  fomid  that  the  President  had  become 
so  far  engaged  in  what  seemed  to  be  the 
policy  indicated  by  my  friend  that  I  did  not 
think  it  worth  while  to  trouble  him  with  my 
views  on  that  subject.  Mr.  Hay's  health  at 
that  time  was  such  that  I  did  not  venture  to 
bring  the  subject  to  his  attention. 

The  Czar's  most  formidable  enemies  are 
not  the  Japanese  but  his  own  subjects,  who 
are  struggling  for  the  possession  of  at  least 
some  of  their  natural  rights.  The  Japs  are 
fighting  their  battles  as  we  fought  the  battle 
of  the  slaves  in  breaking  the  neck  of  the  Con- 
federacy, as  Germany  fought  the  battle  of 
French  republicans  by  overthrowing  the 
chromo  dynasties  of  the  Bourbons  and  the 
Bonapartes.  In  your  desire  for  peace  let  us 
hope  you  and  the  President  will  not  forget 
the  people  of  Russia,  nor  how  frequently  his- 
tory bears  witness  that  the  Christ  sendeth  not 
peace,  but  the  sword,  to  the  nations. 
Yours,  etc., 


DO 


PEACE   GIVEN 

At  the  date  of  this  letter  Russia's  fleet  had 
been  utterly  destroyed,  and  her  influence  on 
the  sea  for  the  time  annihilated.  Port  Arthur 
had  been  taken  and  the  Czar's  land  forces  had 
been  kept  steadily  on  the  retreat.  On  the 
10th  of  March  previous,  the  Japanese  had 
driven  the  Russians  out  of  Mukden  and  oc- 
cupied it.  On  the  16th  of  March  Tie-Pass, 
forty  miles  north  of  Mukden,  fell  also  into 
the  hands  of  the  Japanese,  the  Russians  hav- 
ing retreated  about  108  miles  further  west. 
There  they  rallied,  and  were  speedily  joined 
by  the  Japanese  army  under  General  Oyama. 
Meantime,  General  Kuropatkin  had  been 
superseded  in  the  command  of  the  Russian 
forces  by  General  Linevitch. 

Such  was  the  situation  of  the  belligerents 
on  June  8,  when  the  President  sent  messages 
to  the  representatives  of  the  Japanese  and 
British  governments,  recommending  them, 
"Not  only  for  their  sakes,  but  in  the  interests 
of  the  whole  civilized  world,  to  open  direct 
negotiations  for  peace  with  one  another,"  and 
expressing  his  readiness  to  do  what  he  prop- 
erly could  if  the  two  powers  concerned  felt 


AS   THE   WORLD   GIVETH 

that  his  services  could  be  of  aid  in  arranging 
the  preliminaries  as  to  the  time  and  place  of 
meeting,  etc. 

Both  belligerents  finally  signified  their  ac- 
ceptance of  the  President's  proposal  and  on 
the  12th  of  June  agreed  to  appoint  plenipo- 
tentiaries to  discuss  terms  of  peace,  with  the 
results  of  which  the  public  is  already  familiar. 

The  first  meeting  of  the  plenipotentiaries 
was  held  on  August  9,  in  the  navy-yard,  at 
Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire.  The  treaty 
of  peace  there  concocted  was  signed  by  them 
September  5  of  the  same  year,  and  confirmed 
by  their  respective  sovereigns  on  the  14th  of 
October  following.  There  is  no  evidence  of 
an  official  character  which  has  reached  the 
public,  so  far  as  I  know,  that  either  of  the 
belligerents  had  invited  this  intervention; 
that  either  desired  it,  or  that  either  was  indis- 
posed to  leave  the  issues  of  the  war  to  be  de- 
termined by  the  God  of  battles.  The  terms 
of  the  treaty  prove  pretty  clearly  that  it  was 
signed  under  the  coercion  of  European  pow- 
ers. That  Russia  was  not  yearning  for  our 
intervention  is  sufficiently  manifest  from  her 

1:173 


PEACE  GIVEN 

refusal  to  sign  any  treaty  which  involved  the 
payment  of  a  single  copeck  of  indemnity  to 
the  Japanese — conclusive  evidence  that  she 
did  not  consider  herself  conquered.  Neither 
does  she  consider  herself  conquered  to-day. 
That  the  Japanese  as  a  people  were  not  rec- 
onciled to  the  terms  of  peace  to  which  their 
agent  had  subscribed,  was  shown  by  the  riot- 
ous demonstrations  at  Tokio  and  the  general 
discontent  throughout  their  empire  which  fol- 
lowed the  receipt  of  the  news  that  they  were 
to  receive  no  pecimiary  indemnity,  nor  any 
recognition  of  defeat  from  Russia,  a  discon- 
tent which  slumbers  under  treacherous  ashes, 
the  fires  of  which  are  as  far  as  ever  from  being 
extinct. 

From  the  origin  of  these  negotiations  in 
early  June  to  their  consummation  by  the 
treaty  of  peace  concluded  by  the  Emperor  of 
Japan  and  the  Emperor  of  Russia  on  October 
14, 1905,  it  is  a  memorable  fact  of  conspicuous 
significance  that  neither  of  the  secretaries  of 
state  appears  by  the  record  to  have  partici- 
pated in,  if  ever  consulted  about,  the  negotia- 
tion of  this  treaty  by  the  President. 

CIS] 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

Rumors  emanating  from  Washington  were 
put  in  circulation  that  both  the  belhgerents 
were  anxious  for  our  interference.  That 
meant  merely  that  our  intervention  and  the 
terms  of  the  treaty  both  required  an  apology. 
No  other  than  the  one  circulated  would  have 
been  plausible.  Of  course  all  belligerents  de- 
sire an  end  of  their  fight;  that  is  what  they 
fight  for.  But  they  are  never  unanimous  for 
peace  imtil  one  of  them  at  least  is  disabled. 
The  combatants,  if  separated  by  a  superior 
force,  are  sure  to  continue  hostiles  until  the 
issues  between  them  are  finally  adjudged  to 
their  mutual  satisfaction,  or  by  some  sort  of 
tribunal  from  which  there  is  no  appeal. 

"I  have  always  wished  Peace,"  said  Napo- 
leon, "and  always  offered  it  after  victory; 
never  asked  it  after  a  reverse,  for  one  repairs 
the  loss  of  soldiers  more  readily  than  the  loss 
of  honor."  ^ 

Also,  when  in  the  plentitude  of  his  power, 


^  J'ai  tou jours  voulu  la  paix,  et  tou jours  je  I'ai  offerte  aprfes 
une  victoire:  jamais  je  ne  I'ai  demand^e  aprfes  un  revers,  parce- 
qu'une  nation  recouvre  plus  aisement  des  hommes  qu'elle  ne 
recouvre  I'honneur. 

[193 


PEACE   GIVEN 

he  was  wont  to  present  this  abstract  sentiment 
in  a  more  picturesque  fashion,  as  follows : 

"The  lion  wanted  only  to  sleep,  but  was  al- 
ways being  attacked."^  "The  man  on  horse- 
back wanted  to  stop,  but  how  furl  the  Eng- 
lishmen's sails?" 

There  is  abundant  evidence  that  the  bel- 
ligerents regard  each  other  as  much  enemies 
to-day  as  ever  they  did  before  the  fall  of  Port 
Arthur.  As  recently  as  December  20,  1906, 
more  than  a  year  after  the  Portsmouth  peace, 
the  extra  conservative  Novoe  Vremya  of  St. 
Petersburg  utters  its  note  of  warning.  Atten- 
tion is  called  by  it  to  the  feverish  activity  with 
which  the  Japanese  are  perfecting  their  arma- 
ments. The  conclusion  is  drawn  that  these 
preparations  can  only  have  Russia  as  their 
objective;  that  the  Japanese  as  a  nation  are 
dissatisfied  with  their  government  for  having 
concluded  peace  upon  too  lenient  terms  and 
for  not  having  effectually  put  an  end  to  all 
question  of  Russian  dominion  in  the  East,  the 

*  Le  lion  ne  demandait  qu'a  s-endormir,  mais  on  Fattaquait 
sans  cesser  le  cavalier  aurait  bien  voulu  arreter  son  cheval, 
mais  comment  brider  les  voiles  anglaises? 

Cso] 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

conclusion  being  drawn  that  the  island  king- 
dom will  before  long  make  another  bid  for 
absolute  supremacy  at  the  expense  of  Russia.^ 
Assuming  that  the  President's  motives  for 
lending  himself  and  the  influence  of  his  coun- 
try—whether he  represented  or  misrepre- 
sented it — was  a  himiane  and  fraternal  one  so 
far  as  he  was  concerned;  assimiing  that 
neither  the  fear  lest  the  farther  weakening  of 
Russia  would  give  too  free  a  hand  to  Ger- 
many; assuming  that  the  clamor  of  the  bank- 

*A  book  entitled  "A  Russian  Prisoner  in  Japan"  has  re- 
cently appeared  and  is  reviewed  in  the  New  York  Times  of 
the  27th  April  last  by  a  Japanese  gentleman  who  subscribes 
himself  as  K.  K.  Kawakami,  A.M.  The  conclusion  of  his  arti- 
cle is  interesting  as  expressing  the  opinions  of  one  who  may 
be  presumed  to  have  had  a  deeper  interest  in  the  Russo- 
Japanese  War  than  President  Roosevelt  or  any  of  his  cabi- 
net.    He  says: 

"Strewn  here  and  there  through  the  pages  the  book  contains 
pointed  remarks  about  the  prominent  characters  in  Russia 
and  other  countries.  To  cite  a  few  instances,  Gorky  is  an 
*outcast  and  degenerate*;  Count  Tolstoi  a  'crass  Socialist, 
mischiefmaker,  and  humbug,'  whose  books  are  popular  merely 
because  of  his  'moujik  blouse  and  those  delightful  tableaus 
of  a  real  nobleman  shoemaking  and  haymaking*;  Witte,  a 
*high-handed  genii,*  whose  railroad  and  industrial  policies 
have  ruined  Russia;  Alexieff,  a  'sailor  on  horseback,  who 
knew  no  more  about  the  Japanese  Army  establishment  than 


PEACE   GIVEN 

ers  about  the  costliness  of  the  war  and  its 
dilution  of  Russian  securities,  had  no  undue 
influence  in  prompting  this  effort  to  stay  the 
farther  shedding  of  blood  and  destruction  of 
property,  it  may  be  well  worth  the  while  of 
those  of  us  who  believe  in  popular  sovereignty 
and  constitutional  democracy,  to  consider  how 
far  the  measures  adopted  at  Portsmouth  have 
responded  to  the  President's  pretensions. 

How  much  have  they  stayed  the  shedding 
of  blood? 


he  does  of  the  Patagonian  Army';  Rojestvensky,  a  'fussy 
old  martinet,'  hated  by  all  his  officers;  and  Stoessel,  a  *hen- 
pecked'  coward,  who,  having  surrendered  Port  Arthur  in 
betrayal  of  his  loyal  soldiers,  was  shameless  enough  to  ask 
Gen.  Nogi  if  his  wife  would  be  allowed  to  take  all  her  own 
things  away  with  her.  As  for  Mr.  Roosevelt,  he  is  the  arch- 
angel of  high-handed  despots,  whose  steel  wrist  'hammered 
out  at  the  American  Cronstadt'  a  peace  which  neither  Japan 
nor  Russia  truly  wanted.  'That  terrible  American  President, 
II  8trenuoso/  wanted  peace  at  all  costs,  and  he  surely  was 
'capable  of  locking  the  conferees  in  a  room  and  starving  them 
into  obedience.' " 

"Oh !  it  is  the  strangest  thing  in  all  the  world !  Never  more 
will  a  peace  conference  go  to  America.  The  Americans  are 
too  literal.  A  peace  conference  is  for  the  purpose  of  making 
peace,  they  argue — therefore.  Make  peace!  Quick!  At  once! 
Immediately!  Oh!  sooner  than  that,  even;  if  the  Roosevelt 
happens  to  be  ruling." 

1:223 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

How  much  have  they  arrested  the  destruc- 
tion of  property? 

How  much  have  they  contributed  to  the 
happiness  and  welfare  of  the  people  of  Russia 
in  whose  behalf  was  to  be  found  the  only  ex- 
cuse for  the  President  of  our  republic  med- 
dling with  them? 


HOW  MUCH  HAS  THE  TREATY  OF  PORTSMOUTH 
STAYED  THE  SHEDDING  OF  BLOOD? 

The  war  began  on  the  6th  of  February,  1904, 
when  the  Japanese  admiral  engaged  the  Rus- 
sian ships  and  batteries  at  Port  Arthur.  It 
terminated  with  the  signing  of  the  treaty  of 
peace  at  Portsmouth,  September  5,  1905, 
having  endured  just  about  twenty  months. 
With  the  month  of  November,  1905,  after  the 
treaty  of  Portsmouth  had  been  ratified,  and 
the  news  of  its  conditions  might  be  supposed 
to  have  reached  the  people  of  the  belligerent 
sovereignties,  I  began  to  preserve  what  ap- 
peared to  be  the  most  authentic  reports  of 
what  as  consequences  of  that  news  might 

1:233 


PEACE  GIVEN 

take  place  in  Russia  for  the  rest  of  the  year 
succeeding  the  signature  of  the  treaty,  em- 
bracing exactly  ten  months,— that  I  might 
know  and  be  assured  if  my  apprehensions 
were  to  be  verified  or  not;  if  I  had  cried 
"Wolf,"  when  there  was  no  wolf. 

A  member  of  the  general  staff  at  Wash- 
ington reports  the  casualties  of  the  war  for 
the  whole  twenty  months  to  the  signing  of  the 
treaty  of  peace,  for  Russia,  180,134,  and  for 
Japan,  153,652;  making  an  aggregate  of 
313,786.  The  number  of  killed  is  not  given, 
but  the  killed  and  wounded  are  reported  in 
the  aggregate  as  casualties.  As  that  is  a 
report  for  twenty  months  of  the  war,  to  com- 
pare it  with  the  first  ten  months  of  the  war 
it  is  necessary  to  halve  that  sum,  which  would 
give  156,893  casualties  for  ten  months  of  the 
war. 

Now  let  us  see  what  were  the  fruits  of  the 
Portsmouth  peace  during  the  ten  months  suc- 
ceeding its  ratification. 

From  November,  1905,  to  November,  1906, 
Russia  was  from  one  end  to  the  other  of  its 
vast  domain  in  a  state  of  almost  anarchical 

1:243 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

revolution.  The  successive  defeats  of  its 
armies;  the  annihilation  of  its  navy;  the  im- 
puted corruption  and  incompetence  of  its  offi- 
cers, civil  as  well  as  military,  on  land  and  sea ; 
the  exhaustion  of  the  national  treasury;  the 
destruction  of  the  national  credit;  and,  finally, 
the  disappointment  of  all  hopes  of  political 
relief  at  the  hands  of  the  imperial  govern- 
ment, seemed  to  have  driven  the  proletariat  in 
every  part  of  the  empire  to  desperation.  The 
masses  had  no  leaders,  for  the  government 
had  never  allowed  them  to  possess  or  to  learn 
how  to  exercise  any,  even  the  most  elemen- 
tary political  powers.  Relying  as  they  did 
upon  the  continuance  of  the  war  to  compel 
the  government  to  become  daily  more  de- 
pendent upon  them  for  soldiers  and  money, 
the  longer  Japan  kept  the  Czar's  Cossacks  in 
Manchuria  the  surer  they  became  of  an  ulti- 
mate recognition  of  some  of  the  rights  of 
manhood  theretofore  denied  them.  The 
Portsmouth  treaty,  instead  of  relieving  them, 
filled  them  with  righteous  indignation.  The 
foreign  war  from  which,  whatever  its  result, 
the  people  of  Russia  rightfully  hoped  for  and 


PEACE   GIVEN 

expected,  directly  or  indirectly,  a  substantial 
amelioration  of  their  political  and  social  con- 
dition, was  converted  into  a  Civil  War;  and  an 
army  over  a  million  strong  were  released  from 
the  grasp  of  a  victorious  enemy  to  return  and 
ruthlessly  trample  upon  every  one  of  their 
ennobling  aspirations,  and  crush  their  only 
hope  of  securing  a  mode  of  life  worth  living. 
Riots  began  at  St.  Petersburg,  spread  to 
Moscow,  Odessa,  Sebastopol,  to  the  principal 
Polish  cities,  and  especially  in  the  Caucasus, 
where  revolutionary  governments  actually 
displaced  the  imperial  authorities.  The  num- 
ber of  killed  as  reported  in  my  tables  evi- 
dently is  an  insignificant  portion  of  those  who 
really  perished,  but  grouped  here  as  I  took 
the  casualties  reported  by  the  daily  press, 
the  ghastly  details  will  prove  more  than  ample 
for  the  lesson  which  this  inauspicious  and  un- 
happy meddling  with  the  quarrels  of  foreign 
nations  is  intended  to  teach. 

N.  Y.  Sun,  Nov.  4,  1905.  The  extent  of  dis- 
asters from  the  revolt  in  Odessa  may  be  in- 
ferred from  the  fact  that  there  are  5,000 


AS   THE   WORLD   GIVETH 

wounded  in  the  hospitals  and  the  total 
casualties  15,000. 

N.  Y.  Heraldj  Nov.  7.  The  Bucharest  cor- 
respondent of  the  Daily  Mail  (London) 
writes : 

"There  is  terrifying  news  still  from  Kish- 
ineff;  the  city  is  strewn  with  dead.  An 
unwieldy  provisional  government  has  been 
established.  Famine  reigns  throughout 
Bessarabia  and  the  Hebrews  are  taking 
refuge  in  cellars,  where  they  are  dying  by 
wholesale." 

Odessa,  Monday.  It  is  now  estimated  that 
the  killed  and  wounded  during  the  recent 
riots  here  number  6,000. 

N,  Y,  Sun,  Nov.  7.  The  President  says  to 
Mr.  Strauss  that  in  the  condition  of  social 
disaster  which  actually  exists  in  Russia  he 
does  not  see  that  any  action  can  be  taken  by 
the  government  at  present  which  will  be  of 
any  benefit  to  the  unfortunate  sufferers. 
O  Si  Sic  Omnia! 

L^71 


PEACE   GIVEN 

N.  Y,  Sun,  St.  Petersburg,  Nov.  9.  Sailors 
at  Cronstadt  mutinied  last  night  and  to- 
day set  fire  to  the  town.  ...  A  regiment 
of  Uhlans  sent  from  St.  Petersbiu-g.  The 
first  of  them  landed  were  bayoneted;  the 
rest  joined  the  mutineers.  .  .  .  Ten  un- 
popular officers  are  among  the  killed. 

There  is  nothing  incredible  in  the  report 
that  Count  Witte  said  to  Mr.  Petrunko- 
vitch:  "I  find  myself  confronted  by  a 
mighty  ocean  with  only  a  cockle  shell  to 
cross  it.    Even  if  Christ  assisted  the  gov- 

"  emment,  the  people  would  no  longer  trust 
it." 

Herald  J  Nov.  15.  A  state  of  war  has  been 
declared  in  Vladivostok.  Mr.  Friede,  an 
American  merchant,  telegraphs  his  wife: 
"Safe  aboard  the  Labor,  Terrible  destruc- 
tion of  life  and  property.    City  in  flames." 

Sebastopol,  Dec.  1.  During  the  battle  be- 
tween the  rebel  and  royal  vessels  of  the 
Black  Sea  fleet,  the  Novosti  says  5,000  men 
perished  on  both  sides. 

CSS] 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

Herald,  Dec.  5,  Berlin.  Travelers  from 
Kieff  report  a  serious  fight  there  last  Fri- 
day between  Engineers  and  Cossacks,  and 
many  hundreds  killed  or  wounded. 

Reports  from  Libau  that  several  of  the 
nobility,  officials,  and  other  residents  of 
Livonia  and  Courland,  have  been  attacked 
by  peasants,  killed,  and  terribly  mutilated. 
Bands  of  several  hundred  peasants  are 
roving  about,  robbing  and  killing. 

An  official  statement  says  8,000  peasants 
have  been  killed  at  Odessa  since  the  be- 
ginning of  the  troubles. 

At  Kieff  some  accounts  say  a  massacre 
has  taken  place  in  which  15,000  persons 
were  killed. 

The  assassination  of  General  Sacharoff 
caused  consternation  in  court  and  minis- 
terial circles.  He  displayed  special  brutal- 
ity towards  the  peasants,  beating  a  couple 
of  Moujiks  into  insensibility  because  they 
refused  or  were  unable  to  give  the  names 
of  agitators. 

Herald,  Dec.  11.    Two  strikers  and  a  police- 

1:293 


PEACE   GIVEN 

man     were     killed     and     several     others 

wounded  in  front  of  post-office. 

Dee.  15.    Since  Sunday  the  town  of  Eliza- 

bethgrad  has  been  burning  and  a  mob  has 

been  killing  and  burning  in  the  Hebrew 

quarters. 

Telegraph,  London,  Dec.  14.  A  despatch 
from  Japan  gives  account  of  the  sacking 
and  burning  of  Harbin  by  mutinous  Rus- 
sians. Daylight  revealed  the  Chinese 
quarter  in  ruins  and  400  Russians  lying 
dead  and  wounded  in  the  streets. 

Herald,  Dec.  15.  Peasants  around  Riga  are 
burning  estates  and  murdering  landown- 
ers. Murders  are  committed  in  broad  day- 
light and  the  police  are  afraid  to  inter- 
fere. The  Governor-General  dares  not 
order  the  troops,  not  knowing  if  they  will 
obey. 

Daily  Mail,  Dec.  19.  During  the  street- 
fighting  at  Mitau,  twenty-seven  miles  from 
Riga,  300  persons  were  killed. 

[303 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

Herald,  Dec.  20.  Mobs  of  Lithuanian  and 
Esthonian  peasants  attacked  yesterday  a 
hundred  Cossacks  and  Dragoons,  killed  the 
soldiers  to  the  last  man,  cut  off  their  arms 
and  legs  and  ripped  up  their  bodies.  The 
streets  were  strewn  with  bodies.  Three 
hundred  and  forty  peasants  and  soldiers 
were  killed  and  many  wounded.  Most  of 
the  remaining  population  fled  to  Riga. 

Herald,  Dec.  22.  At  Tukum  the  troops  sur- 
rounded the  town,  fired  on  the  people,  kill- 
ing, as  reported,  400.  The  bloodshed  lasted 
from  eight  in  the  evening  until  nine  in  the 
morning. 

N,  Y,  Sun,  Dec.  25.  Fighting  at  Moscow  has 
been  going  on  incessantly.  The  casualties 
up  to  early  this  morning  were  5,000  killed, 
14,000  wounded. 

Herald,  St.  Petersburg  correspondent  of  the 
London  Times  says : 

"General  Doubasoff  reported  yesterday 
that  15,000  persons  had  been  killed  or 
wounded  in  Moscow." 


PEACE  GIVEN 

Evening  Post,  Dec.  27.  The  military  com- 
mander opened  fire  on  barricades  erected 
around  the  Helfrich  Engine  Works,  which 
were  battered  down.  The  inmates  held  out 
till  three  fourths  of  their  number  were 
killed  or  wounded,  when  the  remnant,  137, 
surrendered.  At  the  Narva  Gate  and  on 
the  Moyka  Canal  50  persons  were  killed 
or  wounded.  The  police  of  St.  Petersburg 
are  now  armed  with  rifles  with  bayonets  at- 
tached. 

Herald,  Paris  edition.  St.  Petersburg,  Tues- 
day. In  the  Sytin  building,  the  finest 
printing-works  in  Russia,  1,000  insurgents 
barricaded  themselves.  When  their  posi- 
tion became  untenable  they  set  fire  to  the 
building,  and  those  who  did  not  escape  in 
the  confusion  through  side  exits  perished 
in  the  flames.  Of  the  number  our  only  re- 
port is,  "Hundreds  perished  in  the  flames." 

Herald,  Dec.  29.  In  St.  Petersburg  work- 
men at  the  Alexandrovsky  factory  yester- 
day fired  on  some  Cossacks.     The  latter 

1:323 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

replied  with  a  storm  of  bullets  made  of  iron 
nuts.  The  result  was  considerable  loss  of 
life  on  either  side. 

The  Times  correspondent  from  St.  Pet- 
ersburg says  the  troops  have  been  ordered 
to  fire  at  all  knots  of  passers-by,  even  at 
the  voluntary  Red  Cross  detachments.  The 
life  and  liberty  of  citizens  often  hang  on 
the  mere  whim  of  a  drunken  soldier.  The 
authorities  ply  the  troops  incessantly  with 
whiskey.  Severe  fighting  is  reported  at 
Wilna.    Hundreds  have  been  slain. 

In  Moscow  whole  blocks  of  four-story 
buildings  were  bombarded,  and  men, 
women,  and  children  within  were  indis- 
criminately massacred.  "Hundreds  or 
thousands"— is  the  only  account  we  have 
of  the  number  of  those  who  perished. 

London  Ecc press,  Jan.  2.  After  the  failure 
of  the  rebellion  at  Moscow,  the  insurgents 
planned  to  escape  in  the  night.  The  police, 
learning  their  intention  or  forcing  it,  cut  a 
hole  in  the  ice  of  the  river  they  were  forced 
to  cross  and  drove  them  all  into  it  that  were 

IS32 


PEACE   GIVEN 

not  shot  in  trying  to  escape.  Of  the  num- 
ber thus  disposed  of,  however,  the  press  has 
not  been  permitted  to  enUghten  us.  In  the 
destruction  of  the  Iron  Works  of  Rodin 
we  are  only  told  that  "many  were  killed  or 
wounded";  and  again  in  Tiflis  two  houses 
were  bombarded,  "many  killed  or  wounded." 
At  the  Anti-Jewish  outbreak  at  Gomel  we 
are  told  that  "many  persons  were  mas- 
sacred by  Cossacks."  A  correspondent  of 
the  Sun  reported,  "Murders  of  policemen 
average  one  or  perhaps  two  daily." 

Evening  Post,  March  23.  Death  sentences 
by  military  courts  were  reported  in  twelve 
cities;  and  at  Kherson  a  score  of  peasants 
killed  or  wounded.  In  none  of  these  cases 
was  there  any  statement  of  the  number. 

Herald,  July  18,  reports:  "Peasants  bum 
more  than  twenty  estates  and  kill  many 
proprietors,"  but  the  number  is  not  stated. 

Sun,  July  21.  In  the  town  of  Syzran  deaths 
by  hundreds. 

1:343 


AS   THE   WORLD   GIVETH 

The  Tribune  reports  the  casualties  from  the 
Sveaborg  revolt  "would  run  into  the  thou- 
sands." 

Paris,  Temps,  At  the  revolt  in  Riga  numbers 
reported  killed  or  wounded— but  no  num- 
bers are  given.  So  at  Siedlce,  the  Paris 
Matin  reports,  "hundreds  killed  and 
wounded";  that  "intoxicated  soldiers  killed 
Christians  and  Jews  without  distinction." 

Evening  Post,  March  13.  Statistics  pub- 
lished to-day  regarding  the  drumhead 
courts-martial  show  that  up  to  March  5, 
when  their  activity  was  suspended  by  Pre- 
mier Stolypin  on  account  of  the  opening  of 
Parliament,  764  persons  were  executed,  an 
average  of  almost  five  daily.  The  majority 
of  the  executions  took  place  in  Poland  and 
the  Baltic  provinces. 

Nothing  has  been  said  here  of  the  thou- 
sands sent  to  Siberia,  condemned  to  the  mines 
for  life  or  shorter  terms  little  less  fatal  to  life, 
and  the  far  larger  number  of  thousands  exiled 

CSS] 


PEACE   GIVEN 

to  America  and  other  foreign  lands.  Neither 
do  any  of  these  reports  that  have  reached  us 
include  the  deaths  directly  or  indirectly  the 
result  of  famine  incident  to  the  lawless  condi- 
tion of  the  country,  the  destruction  of  crops, 
and  the  desperation  of  the  industrial  classes, 
except  to  say  that  it  is  officially  reported  by 
the  government  of  Russia  that  the  number  of 
people  there  now  suffering  from  famine 
amounts  to  thirty  millions.  If  ten  millions  of 
those  might  be  relieved  by  government  aid, 
charity  or  otherwise,  and  that  is  probably  a 
much  larger  number  than  will  be  relieved  by 
either,  one  shrinks  from  attempting  to  esti- 
mate the  number  of  the  remaining  twenty 
millions  who  must  perish  directly  from  fam- 
ine or  from  the  inevitable  diseases  consequent 
upon  insufficient,  unwholesome  nourishment 
and  starvation.  Intelligent  Russians  in  this 
country  agree  in  considering  twenty  millions 
as  a  moderate  estimate  of  the  latter  classes.^ 

*  Mr.  H.  P.  Kennard  reports  to  the  Montreal  Star  of  June 
9th,  1906:  "A  week  or  two  back  I  gave  the  opinion  of  an 
oflBcial  to  the  effect  that  11/0%  of  the  entire  population  of  13 
provinces  in  the  south  of  Russia,  numbering  twenty-five  mil- 
lions of  inhabitants,  had  died  this  winter  directly  and  indi- 

csen 


AS   THE   WORLD   GIVETH 

No  one  acquainted  with  the  condition  of  Russia 
to-day  would  think  of  estimating  the  mor- 
tality in  that  empire  from  the  lack  of  food 
alone  at  less  than  one  million  a  month  from 
now  until  the  next  harvest  is  reaped.  Nor 
will  any  one  pretend,  not  even  a  reactionary 
Russian,  that  the  mortality  due  to  this  famine, 
which  will  so  many  times  exceed  all  the  blood- 
shed of  the  war  had  it  continued  several  times 
twenty  months,  was  not  mainly  the  result  of 
a  premature  peace  and  its  paralyzing  in- 
fluence upon  an  impoverished,  discouraged, 
helpless,  and  desperate  people. 

Every  reader  of  the  foregoing  details  is 
competent  to  estimate  for  himself  how  much 
bloodshed  was  prevented  and  how  many  lives 
were  prolonged  by  the  Portsmouth  peace. 

Some  of  the  Russian  newspapers  observed 
on  November  1,  1906,  the  first  anniversary  of 
the  so-called  Constitution  granted  by  the  Czar 
the  previous  year;  by  footing  up  the  terrible 

rectly  through  famine.  I  am  bomid  to  state  that  as  far  as 
my  investigations  have  proceeded  in  five  of  those  provinces, 
the  percentage  must  be  put  at  a  considerably  higher  figure. 
In  fifty  villages  taken  at  random  with  populations  ranging 
from  600  to  2,000  and  in  which  the  famine  has  been  and  is 


PEACE  GIVEN 

roll  of  deaths  by  violence.  Incomplete  the 
figures  must  be,  since  only  a  portion  of  the 
actual  facts  found  their  way  into  print,  yet 
according  to  the  Evening  Post  of  November 
17,  1906,  "the  total  of  24,239  deaths  in  riots 
or  at  the  hands  of  the  executioner,  is  enough 
to  make  the  world  stand  aghast.  No  less  than 
22,721  persons  are  known  to  have  perished  in 
pogroms,  riots,  conflicts  with  the  authorities, 
punitive  expeditions.  That  this  is  only  a  part 
of  the  bloody  record  appears  from  the  fact 
that  hundreds,  if  not  thousands,  of  the  mas- 
sacred Jews  were  never  accounted  for.  Offi- 
cial executions  disposed  of  1,518  human  lives, 
and  thus  proved  beyond  dispute  how  useless  is 
capital  punishment  as  a  deterrent  when  a 
whole  nation  is  aroused.  Of  the  political 
agitators,  851  were  given  penal  sentences,  ag- 
gregating 7,138  years.  In  the  effort  to  con- 
trol public  opinion,  523  newspapers  and  re- 

prevalent  I  find  an  almost  consistent  mortality  of  70  to  80 
per  thousand  during  the  winter;  over  three  fourths  of  this 
number,  or  80%,  have  consisted  of  babies  and  young  children, 
among  whom  this  mortality  has  been  directly  due  to  famine. 
The  large  children's  hospital  in  Moscow  where  annually 
30,000  children  are  cared  for,— had  a  mortality  of  70%." 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

views  were  suppressed,  and  647  editors  prose- 
cuted. During  the  year,  31  provinces  were 
wholly,  and  46  partially,  under  "exceptional 
laws"  (state  of  siege  or  war,  etc.).  To  these 
figures  the  Strana  adds  that  during  the  past 
twelve  months  there  were  1,629  agrarian  riots, 
while  183  secret  printing-offices  and  150 
depots  of  arms  were  discovered,  containing 
thousands  of  rifles  and  revolvers,  tons  of 
powder  and  explosives,  and  several  machine 
guns.  Bombs  to  the  number  of  244  were 
thrown  at  officials,  while  no  less  than  1,955 
armed  burglaries  were  reported. 

Now  let  us  see  how  much  property  was 
rescued  from  waste  and  destruction  by  the 
suspension  of  the  war. 


HOW  MUCH  HAS  THE  TREATY  OF  PORTSMOUTH 
STAYED  THE  DESTRUCTION  OF  PROPERTY? 

New  York  Sun,  Nov.  4-5,  1905.  Re- 
ferring to  the  details  of  the  three  days' 
reign  of  terror  at  Kieff  (population  248,- 
750),  said:  Practically  every  Jewish  shop 


PEACE  GIVEN 

in  every  street  was  laid  in  ruins,  and  of  the 
nine  telegraphic  routes  of  communication 
between  St.  Petersburg  and  London  only 
one  remained,  involving  a  delay,  even  on 
that  line,  of  twenty-four  hours  for  every 
message.  In  this  and  the  following  cases 
we  must  leave  the  pecuniary  loss  sustained 
by  the  coimtry  to  be  estimated  by  the  imagi- 
nation of  the  reader. 

Herald,  Nov.  7.  The  sole  transcaucasian 
railway  was  effectually  crippled,  compel- 
ling the  reinforcements  for  St.  Petersburg 
to  march  on  foot  at  the  rate  of  fifteen  to 
twenty  miles  a  day  with  the  incidental  wear 
and  tear,  instead  of  making  twenty  miles 
an  hour  or  more  by  rail ;  also  seven  bridges 
on  that  railway  had  been  wrecked,  rails 
torn  up  in  forty  places  and  telegraph  lines 
destroyed. 

London  Daily  Mail,  same  date.  The  theater 
at  Ackermann,  near  Odessa,  is  in  flames, 
and  beside  the  4,000  killed  and  20,000 
wounded,  all  the  Jewish  mills,  shops,  and 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

factories  were  devastated  and  the  city  of 
Odessa  (population  450,000)  was  threat- 
ened with  complete  ruin. 

Surij  Nov.  9.  During  the  sailors'  mutiny  at 
Cronstadt  (population  57,539),  eight  gov- 
ernment depots  were  in  flames,  crews  of 
eleven  war-ships  mutinied  and  held  up  the 
town  for  twenty-four  hours,  terrorizing  and 
looting  the  people.  Telegraph  poles  out 
of  St.  Petersbm'g  cut  for  a  distance  of  foiir 
miles.  Agrarian  outbreaks  reported  from 
different  places  and  peasants  pillaging  the 
estates  of  landowners  in  all  directions. 

Sun,  Nov.  15.  The  Chinese  quarter  of  Vladi- 
vostok (population  28,896)  destroyed, 
seventy  buildings  consumed,  and  the  city 
in  flames. 

Sun,  Nov.  30.  A  mutiny  in  the  fleet  at 
Sebastopol  (population  50,000), two  cruis- 
ers sunk  and  one  battle-ship  badly  hit. 
200  Whitehead  torpedoes  sunk  with  a  min- 
ing ship.    On  the  same  day  the  St.  Peters- 


PEACE   GIVEN 

burg  bank  would  only  accept  Russian 
paper  money  at  one  third  its  face  value, 
and  100,000  workmen  had  struck. 

Herald,  Dec.  2,  1905.  The  tax  on  vodka, 
good  in  normal  times  for  200,000,000  rubles 
annually,  and  the  only  important  source  of 
revenue  then  remaining  to  the  government, 
had  dropped  50  per  cent. 

Sun,  Dec.  4.  Reported  that  several  hundred 
officials  had  stopped  work;  that  strikers 
were  pouring  oil  of  vitriol  into  the  letter- 
boxes of  the  post-office  in  St.  Petersburg 
and  200  mail-bags  remained  unopened. 

Herald,  Dec.  5.  The  imperial  loan  of  '94 
had  dropped  5  per  cent,  in  the  three  preced- 
ing days. 

Herald,  Dec.  6.  Many  factories  are  going 
into  bankruptcy.  800  men  in  the  govern- 
ment alcohol  works  have  struck,  while  the 
government  is  losing  $30,000  a  day  by 
strikes  on  the  postal  and  telegraph  service. 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

The  loss  from  the  railway  strikes  already 
was  estimated  at  $15,000,000.  Industrials 
of  all  kinds  had  ceased  to  be  negotiable. 

Herald,  Dec.  8.  Most  of  the  factories  and 
houses  in  Rostoff  (population  120,000), 
have  been  destroyed.  Fifty  millions  of 
dollars  were  withdrawn  from  the  State 
Bank  and  Imperial  4's  fell  from  94%  to  74 
and  industrials  20  per  cent. 

Sun,  Dec.  11.  200,000  troops  ordered  from 
Vladivostok  to  Odessa  to  suppress  revolu- 
tionary demonstrations;  16,000  of  the 
Kharkoff  (population  170,682)  garrison 
had  mutinied,  and  7,000  of  the  naval  muti- 
neers at  Cronstadt  were  in  prison;  also 
100,000  of  the  better  class  of  Russians  had 
emigrated  in  the  last  ten  days. 

Herald,  Dec.  12.  A  town  of  57,000  in- 
habitants in  the  department  of  Kherson 
had  been  in  flames  since  Sunday,  and  the 
mob  are  plundering  the  Hebrew  quarter; 
Harbin  had  been  sacked  and  burned. 
1:433 


PEACE   GIVEN 

Herald,  Dec.  15.  The  peasants  were  burn- 
ing estates  as  well  as  murdering  the  land- 
owners around  Riga  (population  282,943) ; 
all  railway  communications  had  been  cut 
off  and  thousands  of  Lettish  peasants  were 
roaming  the  country  and  putting  the  torch 
to  the  houses  on  all  the  estates.  On  the  15th 
Dec.  martial  law  was  proclaimed  through- 
out Russia. 

The  Echo  de  Paris,  Dec.  15.  The  town  of 
Riga  shelled  and  burning.  A  Russian 
country  house  and  factory  employing  200 
men  burned  and  the  limiber  on  the  estate 
felled  and  carried  off. 

Herald,  Dec.  20.  Mobs  of  Esthonians  and 
Lithuanians  attacked  and  killed  100  Cos- 
sacks and  Dragoons  in  Courland.  Six 
hundred  more  troops  were  then  sent  and 
shelled  the  place.  Most  of  the  population 
not  killed  by  the  troops  fled  to  Riga. 

Sun,  Dec.  21.     Strikes  in  Moscow   (popu- 
lation 1,035,664),  factories  and  mills  de- 
ll 44] 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

serted;  railway  men  joining  the  strikers 
and  several  trains  left  standing  at  stations. 
Also  a  strike  of  the  firemen  at  Warsaw 
(population  638,208),  who  declare  that  in 
the  event  of  a  fire  they  will  prevent  the  use 
of  their  engines. 

Herald,  Dec.  22.  Fighting  in  the  streets  of 
Moscow;  bankruptcies;  peasants  refusing 
to  pay  taxes;  and  fifty  estates  destroyed. 
All  electric  light  cut  off  in  Moscow  and  all 
telegraphic  communication  between  Mos- 
cow and  the  rest  of  the  world  except  Ber- 
lin; the  Siberian  railroad  shut  down  to  de- 
lay the  return  of  troops,  and  Linevitch,  the 
general  in  command  of  the  Siberian  army, 
reporting  "the  revolutionary  spirit  among 
his  soldiers  to  be  beyond  his  control." 

Herald,  Dec.  23.  The  Baltic  Provinces  are 
joining  the  revolutionary  party ;  the  Balkan 
railroad  destroyed  for  a  considerable  dis- 
tance by  rocks  thrown  to  prevent  return  of 
troops.  All  officials  and  the  well-to-do 
people  are  fleeing  under  escort,  leaving  all 
1:45] 


PEACE   GIVEN 

government  and  private  property  in  the 
hands  of  the  revolutionists;  the  plague 
epidemic  is  spreading,  already  covering 
an  area  of  180  by  300  miles.  At 
Minsk  (population  91,113)  all  the  stores 
closed. 

Herald,  Dec.  25.  The  locomotive  of  an  ex- 
press blown  up. 

Herald,  Dec.  27.  The  Brest  railroad  sta- 
tion burned  and  other  private  properties. 
Many  houses  and  other  buildings  destroyed 
by  artillery  in  Moscow.  The  sky  lit  up  all 
night  by  conflagrations  in  different  parts 
of  the  city.  The  Sytin  Printing  Works, 
the  finest  in  Russia,  employing  6,000  work- 
men, were  surrounded,  set  on  fire,  and 
property  amounting  in  value  to  millions  of 
rubles  was  destroyed,  as  well  as  hundreds 
of  the  workmen  within.  A  store  also  was 
set  on  fire  and  burned.  The  Helfich  Iron 
Works  were  battered  down  over  the  heads 
of  five  hundred  revolutionists  inside,  of 
whom  three  quarters  were  killed. 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

Herald,  Dec.  28.  8,000  insurgents  from  the 
Baltic  provinces  have  lighted  up  the  whole 
country  near  Pecoff  by  the  flames  of  burn- 
ing residences ;  rich  landed  proprietors  were 
boarding  the  trains  at  Pecoff  with  their 
families,  taking  nothing  with  them  but 
their  hand-satchels.  Whole  blocks  of  four- 
story  buildings  bombarded  and  destroyed 
to  their  foundations.  Damage  estimated 
at  seven  millions  of  pounds  sterling.  Doz- 
ens of  loaded  trains  burned  and  looted. 

Herald,  Dec.  30.  The  bridge  over  the  Volga 
blown  up;  4,000  men  engaged  in  destroy- 
ing the  railway  for  83  versts  from  Moscow. 
All  the  railroads  have  stopped  running  in 
Central  Russia. 

A.  D.  1906.  Herald,  Jan.  1.  As  one  of  the 
consequences  of  the  strike  the  previous 
fortnight,  eight  millions  of  letters  not  writ- 
ten or  delivered  that  ordinarily  would  have 
been. 

Herald,  Jan.  3.  Rebellion  extended  to  Est- 
land.     No  end  of  estates  burned  or  de- 

1:473 


PEACE   GIVEN 

vastated.  Villages  in  the  Dnieper  district 
damaged  to  the  estimated  extent  of  five 
million  rubles,  while  the  damages  to  the 
railroads  alone  last  week  amounted  to 
about  ten  millions  of  rubles.  Famine  is 
raging  in  twenty-six  provinces,  while 
cholera  and  plague  are  rife  in  others. 

Herald,  Jan.  4.  The  Caucasus  is  in  full  re- 
volt and  all  communications  by  telegraph 
or  railway  cut  off.  Losses  in  Moscow  by 
strikes  estimated  at  $3,144,000.  In  Khar- 
koff  (population  170,682)  the  revolution- 
ists captured  a  provincial  government 
treasury,  looted  it  and  the  churches.  The 
estates  of  Baron  Budberg  and  Baron 
Sternberg  were  also  destroyed. 

Evening  Post,  Jan.  10,  1906.  Two  houses 
bombarded  in  Tiflis  (population  161,000) ; 
many  killed  or  wounded.  One  house  in 
which  an  Armenian  had  sought  refuge  was 
burned. 

Evening  Post,  Jan.  12,  1906.  Armenian 
seminar}^  shelled  and  burned  by  Cossacks. 


AS   THE  WORLD  GIVETH 

Sun,  Jan.  21.  Damage  to  house  property  in 
Moscow  from  shells  and  bullets  estimated 
at  not  less  than  ten  millions  sterling.  Town 
of  Gomel  (population  150,000)  set  on  fire 
by  Cossacks  and  burned  for  forty-eight 
hours. 

Evening  Post,  Mar.  23.  Pillage  of  churches 
reported  in  two  provinces  in  the  Caucasus. 
In  Samara  (population  99,856)  the  mail- 
coach  held  up  and  $19,000  carried  off.  An 
armed  band  plundered  the  state  distillery 
at  Orenburg  and  several  pharmacies.  In 
Poland  a  large  factory  was  burned  to  the 
ground  and  the  Credit  Mutual  Bank 
robbed  of  $432,000.  Machine  guns  were 
despatched  in  all  directions ;  troops  concen- 
trated at  strategic  points;  armored  trains 
at  railroad  centers  and  iron-clad  auto- 
mobiles sent  to  larger  cities  to  suppress 
street  riots. 

Evening  Post,  Mar.  25.  Military  trains  with 
artillery  ordered  to  keep  up  steam  at  all 
railway  termini  until  the  Duma  meets. 


PEACE   GIVEN 

Apr.  30.  Three  and  a  half  millions  of  dol- 
lars placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  Minister 
of  War  to  keep  troops  changing  their  sta- 
tions to  prevent  their  infection  with  demo- 
cratic sympathies.  Streets  of  Warsaw 
patrolled  by  troops ;  shops  and  restaurants 
closed;  no  cabs  or  cars  running  or  news- 
papers sold. 

Montreal  Gazette,  June  17-18.  At  Bialystok 
(population  90,000)  revolutionists  fired 
from  roofs  of  houses  at  government  build- 
ings all  day. 

Evening  Post,  June  21.  In  consequence  of 
agrarian  disturbances  landowners  in  three 
provinces  abandon  their  estates. 

Sun,  June  22.  The  peasants  refused  to  pay 
their  taxes  on  their  allotments.  Schools 
and  hospitals  all  closed  for  want  of  funds. 

Sun,  June  24.  Anarchy  throughout  the  em- 
pire except  in  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow. 
4  towns  and  over  200  villages  destroyed 

1502 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

by  fire.  Fields  and  vineyards  devastated, 
cattle  looted,  population  seek  refuge  from 
Cossacks  in  the  mountains.  The  fate  of 
the  women  terrible. 

Evening  Post,  June  26.  Property  near  Sa- 
mara destroyed  during  the  month  valued  at 
$250,000. 

Sun,  June  30.  Finance  Minister  reports 
that  the  strikes  of  October  last  cost  the 
government  80,000,000  of  rubles.  What  it 
cost  the  country  not  estimated. 

Evening  Post,  July  10.  Emigration  to  Si- 
beria the  last  six  months,  86,867.  Estate  of 
a  late  minister  and  another  of  Prince 
Kotzebue  devastated  by  peasants. 

Evening  Post,  July  11.  Four  ironclads  at 
Sevastopol  destroyed  by  mutineers.  The 
cashier  of  the  Vistula  railway  and  a  servant 
of  the  Admiralty  were  robbed,  the  first  of 
$50,000,  the  other  of  $12,500.  40,000  Jews 
fled  yesterday  from  Warsaw.    Proprietors 


PEACE   GIVEN 

of  8  Jewish  factories  are  winding  up  their 
affairs  and  moving  to  Palestine. 

Herald,  July  18.  The  workmen  in  the  Ad- 
miralty Arsenal  at  Sevastopol  strike  and 
are  joined  by  the  store  employes  and  cab- 
drivers.  Reports  of  General  Staff  show  6 
guard  regiments,  26  line,  7  cavalry,  6  artil- 
lery, 5  sappers,  demoraUzed  by  revolution- 
ary sympathies.  4  estates  completely  de- 
stroyed. In  the  province  of  Verona  more 
than  20  estates  burned  by  peasants.  Ten 
miles  from  Sevastopol  15  estates  were 
burned  and  many  proprietors  killed. 

Evening  Post,  July  18.  Emperor  approved 
a  bill  appropriating  $7,500,000  for  famine 
relief. 

Sun,  July  19.  Peasants  surrounded  the 
Grand  Duke  Michael's  villages  and  are 
dividing  the  land  among  themselves. 

Herald,  July  21.  The  Duma  suspended  un- 
til October. 


AS   THE   WORLD   GIVETH 

Sun^  July  21.  Town  of  Syzran  still  burning. 
Two  other  towns  in  flames;  hundreds  of 
houses  in  each  town  destroyed;  thousands 
camping  out.  General  depression  in  gov- 
ernment securities.  Imperial  four  per 
cents  closed  at  74%.  The  new  Russian 
loan  closed  at  7%  discount.  Russian  4's 
of  1902  at  Berlin  sold  at  72.85. 

Sun^  July  23.  Imperial  4's  have  fallen  in  St. 
Petersburg  to  69,  and  5's  to  82. 

Sun,  July  24.  Sir  Henry  Bannerman's 
speech  before  the  Inter-Parliamentary 
Union:  "The  Russian  Parliament  is  dead. 
Long  live  the  Russian  Parliament." 

Sun,  July  25.  Fierce  fighting  140  miles 
northwest  of  Warsaw  (population  638,- 
208)  between  mutineers  and  loyal  troops. 
All  good  buildings  destroyed. 

Sun,  July  26.  Three  artillery  companies 
mutinied  at  Saratoff,  destroyed  the  Offi- 
cers' Club  and  other  buildings.     Chateau 


PEACE   GIVEN 

Remten,  one  of  the  finest  castles  in  Cour- 
land,  burned,  and  many  lives  lost. 

Tribune,  July  27.  Railway  held  up,  the  offi- 
cer in  charge  killed.  Several  strong-boxes 
broken  open;  $7,500  taken  in  the  outskirts 
of  Warsaw.  The  Konigsburg  and  Bialy- 
stok  railways  have  stopped  taking  freight 
from  Moscow. 

Evening  Post,  July  27.  The  damage  from 
the  burning  of  Syzran  (July  19  and  20), 
five  million  dollars.  The  strikers  burned 
the  factory;  loss,  $40,000. 

Evening  Post,  July  28.  A  Warsaw  pas- 
senger train  with  government  money  at- 
tacked by  armed  men  who  carried  off 
$80,000. 

Evening  Post,  July  30.  The  Brodski  eleva- 
tors were  burned,  loss  estimated  at  $1,500,- 
000.  Three  large  estates  in  Samara  de- 
stroyed last  night.  Peasants  are  cutting 
wood  both  in  crown  and  private  forests. 
1:543 


AS  THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

300  peasants  burned  the  house  and  stock 
stables  of  the  president  of  the  Zemstvoes 
District  and  sacked  the  spirit  stores  of  the 
adjoining  village. 

Aug.  1.  Entire  crews  of  four  war-ships  muti- 
nied at  Sebastopol;  200,000  smelters  struck 
and  walked  out  yesterday  at  Usorka.  A 
garrison  in  the  Caucasus  on  receiving  news 
of  the  dissolution  of  the  Duma,  July  31, 
killed  their  commanding  officer  and  took 
control  of  the  city,  post,  telegraph,  and 
government  buildings. 

Sun,  Aug.  2.  A  powder  magazine  exploded 
by  a  cannon-shot  with  great  destruction. 
Sixty  miles  of  railroad  destroyed,  cutting 
off  communication  of  Helsingfors  with  St. 
Petersburg.  Fort  at  Zveaborg  turned  its 
guns  on  the  town. 

Heraldj  Aug.  2.  Fortifications  at  Helsing- 
fors seriously  damaged  by  fire  from  cruis- 
ers. 1500  sailors  at  Cronstadt  distrusted 
and  imprisoned. 

1:553 


PEACE   GIVEN 

Tribune^  Aug.  3.  Crews  of  two  Russian 
cruisers  raised  red  flag.  Immense  forests 
of  government  are  on  fire.  Three  other 
fires  raging  near  Baltic  railway  station.  At 
St.  Petersburg  (population  1,267,023), 
20,000  workmen  struck. 

Paris,  Temps,  Aug.  25.  250,000  Israelites 
have  left  Russia  since  January. 

Aug.  26.  The  postal-box  on  arriving  at 
St.  Petersburg  yesterday  had  been  relieved 
of  $94,200,  replaced  by  lead.  At  Odessa 
(population  450,000)  27  stores  have  been 
pillaged  during  the  week. 

Temps,  Aug.  28.  Riga:  Unfurnished  house 
occupied  by  revolutionists  riddled  by  bul- 
lets. Fires  on  properties  in  four  different 
provinces. 

Temps,  Aug.  30.  Province  of  Saratov:  Nu- 
merous domains  and  buildings  daily  set  on 
fire. 

Province  of  Kassan:  Most  of  the  pro- 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

prietors  have  abandoned  their  estates  with 
contents.  Incendiary  fires  numerous  in 
four  other  provinces. 

Herald,  Sept.  1.  All  trains  arrive  at  St. 
Petersburg  under  protection  of  troops. 
Warsaw  terrorists  shot  two  soldiers  in  a 
government  alcohol  depot  at  Siedlce 
(population  20,000)  ;  a  massacre  ensued; 
three  streets  were  devastated. 

TempSj  Sept.  13.  In  the  riots  at  Siedlce  four 
of  the  principal  streets  are  almost  com- 
pletely devastated,  27  houses  have  been 
burned  and  many  others  pillaged  and  in- 
jured. 

Sun,  Oct.  9.  The  Convocation  of  the  Duma 
postponed  for  another  six  months. 

Such  are  some  of  the  disastrous  results  for 
which  our  meddling  with  the  Russo-Japan- 
ese struggle  must  be  held  largely  responsible, 
yet  it  represents  but  an  inconsiderable  share 
of  the  destruction  of  property  sustained  by 


PEACE   GIVEN 

Russia  alone  during  this  the  first  year  of  her 
army's  release  from  its  Japanese  pursuers. 
And  yet  the  destruction  for  the  succeeding 
year,  of  which  I  have  here  given  no  account, 
was  equally  disastrous. 

I  have  referred  to  the  ravages  of  a  famine 
which  threatened  directly  and  indirectly  the 
very  existence  of  fully  20,000,000  of  the  in- 
habitants. How  can  we  estimate  the  loss  in 
labor  of  so  many  millions,  whether  by  death 
or  debility  through  lack  of  nourishment?  The 
empty  sack  will  not  stand  up  nor  an  underfed 
man  do  work  to  anybody's  advantage.  Prince 
Lyoff  is  reported  to  have  pronounced  the  gov- 
ernment estimate  of  $50,000,000  inadequate 
for  famine  relief.  The  Moscow  Zemstvo  re- 
lief organization  calculated  that  $75,000,000 
and  possibly  more  will  be  required. 

And  when  are  these  ravages  of  famine  to 
cease?  The  majority  of  the  farms  of  Russia 
are  now  destitute  of  the  stock  absolutely  nec- 
essary for  their  tillage  and  the  proprietors 
lack  not  only  money  but  credit  with  which  to 
purchase  the  seed  for  crops  the  current  year. 
Their  stock  or  what  has  not  been  wrongfully 

1582 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

taken  from  them  has  all  been  eaten  to  sustain 
life.  In  the  fifty  provinces  of  Russia  every 
thousand  farms  in  the  year  1900  required  and 
actually  possessed  about  6500  head  of  stock, 
or  between  77,000  and  78,000  in  the  several 
departments.  In  27  of  those  departments  at 
least,  all  the  farm  stock  has  practically  disap- 
peared :  killed  for  food  or  perished  from  star- 
vation. Under  Russian  farming  conditions 
it  has  been  said,  a  farm  without  horses  is  no 
more  a  farm  than  a  knife  without  a  blade. 
Without  money  or  credit  when  can  these 
peasants  replace  the  stock  or  the  seed  abso- 
lutely necessary  for  the  support  of  their  own 
life,  and  under  existing  political  conditions 
how  many  years  must  elapse  before  this  des- 
titution terminates,  and  at  the  price  of  how 
much  misery  and  the  loss  of  how  many  more 
lives  ?^ 

*It  appears  that  disease  is  daily  adding  to  the  terrors  of 
famine  in  Russia.  So  recently  as  the  6th  April  of  this  cur- 
rent year.  "Scurvj-^  is  making  great  strides  in  the  famine 
districts.  The  official  reports  for  the  second  fortnight  of 
March  show  1,055  cases  in  Ufa  Province  and  717  in  Saratov, 
compared  with  438  cases  in  Ufa  the  first  fortnight  of  March 
and  356  in  Saratov  Province  during  the  same  period."  When 
and  where  is  this  scourge  to  be  arrested? 

Z591 


PEACE  GIVEN 

To  some  minds  there  is  another  and  more 
compendious  way  of  estimating  the  destruc- 
tion of  property  sustained  by  Russia  since  her 
army  was  released  from  the  lockout  of  the 
Japanese,  a  way  by  which  we  may  estimate 
the  minimum  of  that  loss  with  satisfactory 
precision. 

The  Russian  and  Japanese  envoys  at 
Washington  were  escorted  ceremoniously  in 
one  of  our  ships  of  war  to  Oyster  Bay  to  be 
presented  to  each  other  by  the  President,  for 
the  purpose  of  initiating  peace  negotiations, 
on  the  5th  of  August,  1905.  On  the  first  of 
the  previous  month  the  Russian  state  debt  was 
at  least  four  thousand  millions,  or  four  bil- 
lions of  dollars. 

Below  we  give  a  table  of  quotations  of  Rus- 
sian securities  taken  from  the  columns  of  the 
Paris  Matin  of  July,  1905,  and  another  of  the 
same  securities  on  September  1,  1906.  By 
these  tables  it  appears  that  the  depreciation  in 
value  of  those  securities  averaged  during  this, 
the  first  year  of  the  peace,  considerably  over 
25%.  One  loan  of  $2,718,151,809,  4  per  cent., 
fell  to  17  and  17%%.    The  5  per  cent,  treas- 

1:603 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

ury  bonds,  $2,751,258,000,  fell  24% ;  while  4 
per  cent,  railroad  bonds  guaranteed  by  the 
government  fell, — those  of  1903,  94% ;  those 
of  1889,  97%;  and  those  of  1899,  98%.  As- 
suming the  average  decline  to  be  only  25  per' 
cent,  on  the  whole  indebtedness  of  the  empire, 
the  depreciation  could  not  have  been  less  than 
one  billion  of  dollars. 

DEPRECIATION  OF  RUSSIAN  SECURITIES  BETWEEN 
JULY  1,  1905,  AND  SEPTEMBER  1,  1906 

^"^^me^L'k"^'^^"'-        ^fy^^        SePy^         I^epre- 
le Matin  ofF^ris  ^^^^  1^««  ^^^^^^^ 

4%  1867-1869    86.60  73.40  13.50 

4%  1880  c.  de  20    86.30  72.  14.30 

4%  1889  c.  de  20 85.  70.  15. 

4%  1890  ge  &  3e  c.  20  ...    84.85  70.07  14.78 

4%  1890  4^  c.  20 89.50  72.  17.50 

4%  1893  5^  c.  20 .   87.  70.  17. 

4%  1894  c.  de  20   87.  69.90  17.10 

4%  cons,  ler  2^  c.  20 86.30  70.80  15.50 

4%  cons.  3^  c.  20 87.60  70.55  9.90 

4%  1901  c.  20 88.  70.35  17.65 

3%  1891    72.50  59.50  13. 

3%  1896    . 71.15  57.60  13.55 

31/2  1894  c.  17cts  50 79.35  62.85  16.50 

Bons  du  Tresor  5%  1904 

Rentes    496.  472.  24. 

Cei] 


PEACE  GIVEN 


Quotations  of  Russian  Secur- 
ities taken  from 
le  Matin  of  Paris 

July  1, 
1905 

Sept.  1, 
1906 

Depre- 
ciation 

4%  1894  c.  42  Guaranty  . 

84. 

69.60 

14.40 

Obi.  4%  Donetz  R.  R.  ... 

83.50 

71.50 

12. 

4%  Divinsk-Vitebsk   R.  R. 

87.80 

71.50 

16.30 

4%  Koursk.  Kh.  1889 

R.R 

546. 

448. 

98. 

4%  Orel-Griasi  1889  R.R.  547. 

450. 

97. 

4%  Riga-Div.  1894  R.  R. 

83. 

72. 

11. 

3%  Trans-Caucasien  R.  R. 

72.50 

60.50 

12. 

4%  Transc.   c.    SO    Guar- 

antys    

90.25 

70. 

20.25 

Lettre  de  gage  3%  Guar- 

anty     

76.10 

60.10 

16. 

Obi.  4%  ch.  fer  1903  . .  .436.         342.  94. 

It  may  be  said  with  entire  justice  that  these 
securities  may  recover  one  of  these  days ;  that 
a  more  conciliatory  attitude  of  the  govern- 
ment towards  the  new  Duma  now  in  session 
may  improve  the  market  for  some  of  them. 
Should  the  Duma  live  long  enough  to  ter- 
minate its  deliberations  by  a  voluntary  ad- 
journment and  not  be  dismissed  by  a  vis  a 
tergo  from  the  Czar,  the  ignoble  fate  of  its 
predecessor,  the  market  would  be  likely  to  ex- 
perience a  substantial  improvement  to  the 
great  advantage  of  the  government's  credit, 

i:62] 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

and  the  great  comfort  of  their  then  owners, 
but  of  none  whatever  to  the  unfortunates  who 
have  parted  with  them.  This  loss  has  all  of  it 
been  sustained  in  money  by  those  who  had  to 
sacrifice  them,  and  in  credit,  by  the  govern- 
ment; and  credit  is  a  commodity  of  which 
every  government  stands  the  more  in  need  the 
less  it  has.  I  think  it  no  exaggeration  to  say 
that  each  of  the  belligerents  might  have  con- 
tinued fighting  at  a  far  greater  daily  expense 
than  either  incurred  during  the  war  for  at 
least  three  years  longer,  and  the  aggregate 
damages  to  both  would  have  been  less  than 
Russia  sustained  in  a  single  year  from  the 
ratification  of  this  treaty  of  peace.  Had  the 
war  continued  only  another  year  it  requires 
no  prophet  to  predict  that  the  Duma  of  1906 
would  not  have  been  precipitately  and  igno- 
miniously  closed  by  the  Czar;  his  government 
might  now  be  far  advanced  in  the  establish- 
ment of  a  system  of  ParHamentary  govern- 
ment which  would  have  granted  his  subjects 
all  the  privileges  they  are  united  in  requiring, 
and  all  for  which  they  are  prepared  as  yet  per- 
haps to  make  a  good  use. 

[633 


PEACE  GIVEN 

HOW  MUCH  HAS  THE  PEACE  OF  PORTSMOUTH 
CONTRIBUTED  TO  THE  HAPPINESS  AND  WEL- 
FARE  OF  THE   PEOPLE  OF  RUSSIA? 

The  war  with  Japan  was  provoked  by  Rus- 
sia's occupation  of  Port  Arthur,  which  Japan 
had  been  constrained  by  the  other  powers  to 
surrender  to  China,  and  which  she  regarded 
as  one  of  the  legitimate  prizes  of  her  war  with 
that  empire.  This  occupation  of  Port  Ar- 
thur by  Russia  was  practically  the  occupa- 
tion of  Manchuria,  a  menace  to  Korea,  and 
the  exposure  of  Japan  to  a  very  undesirable 
neighbor.  As  a  consequence  diplomatic  rela- 
tions between  Russia  and  Japan  terminated 
in  February,  1905.  In  a  few  days  followed 
the  utter  destruction  of  the  Russian  navy  by 
the  Japanese,  the  capture  of  Port  Arthur 
from  Russia  and  during  the  next  eight 
months  a  succession  of  battles  in  the  field 
uniformly  followed  by  the  defeat  of  the  Rus- 
sians, who  were  driven  out  of  Manchuria  and 
well  on  toward  their  European  frontier  until 
relieved  by  the  negotiations  at  Portsmouth. 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

Among  the  results  of  these  successive  defeats 
of  the  St.  Petersburg  government  has  been 
the  arrest  of  nearly  all  the  officers  having  the 
most  important  commands  in  these  several 
engagements,  the  trial  of  most,  and  the  con- 
viction of  many  of  cowardice,  corruption,  or 
incompetence,  and  of  a  knavish  perversion  of 
the  supplies  provided  for  the  army,  by  the 
officials  through  whose  hands  they  passed. 
Among  not  the  least  serious  consequences  of 
these  degrading  accusations  has  been  the  utter 
extinction  of  Russia's  power  on  the  ocean 
and,  from  being  the  most  formidable  military 
power  in  Europe,  becoming  one  of  the 
feeblest;  and,  as  a  necessary  incident,  the 
serious  impairment  of  her  financial  credit 
throughout  the  world. 

The  Russian  people  naturally  impute  all 
these  humiliations  to  their  government,  some 
to  its  present  personnel,  but  more  and  more 
justly  to  the  autocratic  system  itself  by  which 
Russia  has  been  hitherto  governed. 

There  are  many  still  living  who  remember 
the  wild  acclaim  with  which  the  manifesto 
abolishing  serfdom  in  Russia  by  the  Czar, 

165:1 


PEACE   GIVEN 

Alexander  II,  on  the  19th  of  February,  1861, 
was  received  throughout  the  world,  and  espe- 
cially to  us  to  whom  it  came  as  a  rebuke,  ours 
being  the  only  republic  holding  several  mil- 
lions of  our  fellow  creatures  in  bondage.  It 
may  also  have  given  a  new  impulse  to  the 
desperate  and  sanguinary  struggle  destined 
in  due  time  to  eliminate  from  our  constitution 
whatever  protection  it  gave  to  property  in 
slaves. 

Never  was  a  greater  delusion  than  that  that 
manifesto  of  Russia's  sovereign  meant  an 
amelioration  in  the  condition  of  the  serf.  It 
provided  that  the  slave  was  to  be  freed,  but 
with  no  other  compensation  for  past  services 
or  provision  for  his  future  support  than  an 
allotment  of  land  theoretically  assumed  to  be 
sufficient  to  provide  for  his  personal  needs 
and  to  discharge  his  obligations  to  the  state 
for  his  land.  For  this  land  he  was  ultimately 
to  pay,  the  government  undertaking  to  guar- 
anty and  collect  its  price  from  the  peasant  in 
instalments  distributed  over  a  period  of  forty- 
nine  years.  This,  and  all  other  taxes,  were 
collected  by  the  government  through  the  vil- 
li 661] 


AS  THE  WORLD  GIVETH 

lage  commune,  for  which  its  members  were 
not  only  jointly  but  severally  responsible. 
How  the  peasants  were  cheated  by  the  offi- 
cers and  the  landlords  is  a  long  and  dreary 
story.  It  is  enough  to  say  here  that  the  allot- 
ments as  a  rule  were  so  arranged  as  to  make 
the  peasantry  rather  the  slaves  than  serfs  of 
the  landlords.  His  land  holdings  were  ser- 
iously diminished  in  its  dimensions ;  he  could 
not  leave  his  place  without  permission  of  the 
authorities;  the  land  given  him  was  not  his 
own;  he  could  not  even  say  to  the  authorities: 
"Keep  your  land  and  let  me  go,"  which  many 
would  have  liked.  The  taxes  on  most  of  these 
allotments  exceed  many  times  what  they 
could  possibly  be  made  to  produce.  The 
peasant  could  leave  it  only  on  a  condition  that 
he  paid  the  taxes,  which  it  was  clearly  in- 
tended he  should  never  be  able  to  do.  As  a 
serf  he  had  been  liable  to  be  flogged  by  the 
landowner.  Now  he  was  liable  to  be  flogged 
not  only  by  a  decision  of  any  village  court, 
but  at  the  pleasure  of  any  petty  police  official. 
He  thus  became  hopelessly  the  slave  of  the 
state. 


PEACE  GIVEN 

The  disappointment  of  the  peasantry  at 
the  result  of  their  changed  conditions  nat- 
urally became  very  bitter.  The  freedom  so 
feverishly  expected  and  fervently  prayed  for 
had  to  be  introduced  only  too  often  with  the 
help  of  the  military.  During  the  first  two 
years  after  the  publication  of  the  abolition 
act,  from  February  19,  '61,  to  February  19, 
'63,  the  Department  of  the  Interior  had  to 
suppress  more  than  1100  agrarian  riots.  The 
taxes  on  the  land  exceeded  the  income  from 
it  from  100%  to  500%.  The  state  took  from 
the  peasant  not  only  all  that  the  land  could 
possibly  produce,  but  a  large  share  of  what 
he  could  gain  outside  as  a  factory-hand, 
blacksmith,  driver,  woodchopper,  farm-hand, 
etc.  These  taxes  gradually  so  reduced  the 
producing  power  of  the  land,  the  necessary 
stock  for  its  cultivation,  and  the  necessary 
sustenance  for  the  inhabitants,  as  to  cause  the 
Russian  peasants  to  physically  degenerate 
from  year  to  year.  Though  to  meet  the  exi- 
gencies of  the  public  service,  men  who  would 
have  been  rejected  from  the  army  some  years 
ago  are  now  pressed  into  the  service,  and. 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

therefore,  the  increase  of  the  percentage  of  the 
rejected  does  not  fully  express  the  physical 
deterioration  of  the  Russian  soldier,  yet  the 
official  statistics  show  results  sufficiently 
alarming.  Throughout  the  fifty  provinces 
of  European  Russia  from  1874  to  1883  the 
proportion  of  the  rejected  soldiers  was  6.4, 
while  during  the  ten  following  years  from 
1894  to  1901  the  rejections  were  10.3— al- 
most double.  The  peasants  not  only  became 
slaves  of  the  state  in  economic  dependence  on 
the  landlord,  but  in  order  to  pay  taxes  which 
their  own  land  allotments  could  not  furnish, 
the  peasants  were  compelled  to  rent  more 
acres  from  the  landlords  and  always  at  the 
landlords'  own  price.  This  developed  a  pe- 
culiar contract  labor  tenant  system.  The 
land  is  rented  every  year  at  an  extremely 
high  figure  which  the  peasant,  of  course,  is  not 
able  to  pay  in  money  but  is  expected  to  work 
out  on  the  landlord's  estate.  The  peasant's 
work  is  priced  extremely  low,  as  a  rule  at 
about  one  half  of  the  prevailing  wages,  for  he 
cannot  go  elsewhere  for  employment— he  is 
at  the  mercy  of  his  landlord.     Under  these 

1691 


PEACE   GIVEN 

circumstances  he  cannot  meet  his  obligations ; 
his  indebtedness  to  the  landlord  naturally  ac- 
cumulates from  year  to  year.  In  this  way  a 
landlord  gets  field  labor  at  a  cost  much  lower 
than  the  cost  of  the  laborers'  subsistence,  be- 
sides getting  the  use  of  their  farming  stock  at 
the  same  rate.  The  peasant  as  a  rule  finds 
himself  obliged  to  use  his  own  farm  horses 
while  he  has  any,  on  the  landlord's  estate.  So 
much  has  this  become  the  case  that  a  very 
large  percentage  of  estates  have  ceased  keep- 
ing any  farming  stock,  relying  entirely  upon 
that  of  the  dependent  peasants.  The  Russian 
peasant  now  rarely  harvests  enough  grain  to 
feed  the  household  throughout  the  year.  As 
a  rule  the  whole  of  his  harvest  is  consumed  by 
December,  after  which  he  is  obliged  to  get 
money  or  bread  on  any  condition  offered  him. 
His  landlord,  of  course,  has  to  advance  him 
bread  or  money,  to  secure  his  service,  but  in 
doing  so  binds  him  to  work  out  the  loan  on 
the  lender's  estate.  In  this  way  the  peasant 
gets  gradually  farther  in  debt  to  the  landlord 
for  one,  two,  three  or  more  years  ahead  at 
wages  from  47%  to  50%  lower  than  he  might 

1:70] 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

get  if  free  to  go  elsewhere  and  of  course  cor- 
respondingly heavier  links  to  the  chains  by 
which  he  is  bound.  He  actually  pays  for  the 
bread  or  the  money  received  from  the  land- 
lord from  47%  to  50%  interest  for  six  months 
of  the  year.  This  is  known  as  ''bread  usury." 
Not  only  are  such  contracts  permitted  by  the 
government,  but  their  specific  performance  is 
enforced  and  their  breach  is  treated  as  a  mis- 
demeanor. The  police  are  required  to  bring 
to  the  landlord  all  contracted  laborers  who 
have  left  the  landlord's  fields  before  the  work 
was  completed.  Such  a  runaway  peasant  is 
liable  to  detention  in  jail  for  one  month, 
which  brings  him  yet  more  in  debt  because  of 
his  lost  time. 

This  is  a  brief  and  very  inadequate  de- 
scription of  the  condition  of  ninety  per  cent, 
of  the  population  of  Russia,  for  which  it  is 
impossible  to  devise  any  apology  or  a  single 
extenuating  circumstance,  and  it  strips  the 
Czar,  Alexander  II,  of  his  only  claim  to  be 
gratefully  remembered  either  by  his  own  sub- 
jects or  by  posterity.  It  is  a  condition  of 
things,  too,  which  palliates>  if  it  does  not  ex- 


PEACE   GIVEN 

cuse,  horrors  of  which  Russia  has  been  the 
theatre  of  late  years  without  precedent  in 
modern  history. 

Sad  as  the  condition  of  the  Russian  peasant 
has  been  made  by  the  conversion  of  his  serf- 
dom, it  is  not  all  nor  the  worst  of  the  evils 
which  the  Portsmouth  peace  conference  has 
incurred  the  distinction  of  aiding  to  perpetu- 
ate. The  St.  Petersburg  government  has 
neglected  no  artifice  that  Satan  could  devise 
to  extinguish  not  only  all  power  but  all  hope 
of  any  substantial  amelioration  of  the  condi- 
tion of  the  Russian  proletariat.  It  has  shown 
itself  wilfully  blind  to  the  perils  which 
threaten  it.  It  persists  with  seemingly  in- 
creasing obstinacy  in  exploiting  one  hundred 
and  thirty  millions  of  Russians  for  the  ex- 
clusive and  selfish  advantage  of  one  or  per- 
haps two  hundred  thousand  privileged  per- 
sons. That  hundred  and  twenty-eight  or  nine 
millions  had  no  representation  of  any  sort  at 
the  seat  of  government  until  the  financial 
exigencies  incident  to  the  war  with  Japan 
compelled  some  concession  and  was  in  the 
way  of  securing  more,  had  not  this  prospect 


AS  THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

been  arbitrarily  clouded  by  a  premature 
peace.  The  education  of  the  peasantry  is 
systematically  discouraged  by  the  governing 
class.  In  fact  every  educated  man  in  Russia, 
not  avowedly  a  reactionary,  incurs  the  suspi- 
cion of  being  politically  a  criminal.  Since 
the  Portsmouth  peace  the  universities  have 
been  closed  much  of  the  time  because  the  stu- 
dents were  all  clamorous  for  the  rights  and 
privileges  enjoyed  by  their  class  at  other 
universities  in  Europe  and  in  America.  The 
censorship  of  the  press  is  so  severe  that  only 
about  three  per  cent,  of  the  few  books  allowed 
to  be  sold  in  Russia— in  all  a  very  limited 
number — are  permitted  to  be  placed  in  vil- 
lage libraries. 

There  is  practically  no  such  thing  as  a  news- 
paper in  Russia  at  present,  as  that  word  is 
understood  in  England,  France,  or  America. 
In  the  year  1906  it  was  ascertained  that  of 
the  political  agitators— we  should  call  them 
reformers— 851  were  condemned  to  penal 
sentences,  523  newspapers  and  magazines 
were  suppressed,  and  647  editors  were  prose- 
cuted,—most  of  them  were  sent  to  prison. 

CVS] 


PEACE   GIVEN 

It  is  still  impossible  to  publicly  discuss 
any  remedy  for  existing  abuses  which  con- 
templates a  reasonably  representative  gov- 
ernment as  one  of  its  means,  even  for  a 
parhamentary  government,  if  it  limits  the 
absolutism  of  the  Czar. 

When  we  come  to  reaUze  the  condition  we 
have  here  only  too  inadequately  described,  are 
we  surprised  that  assassination  should  be 
glorified  by  the  victims  of  that  condition  into 
a  virtue ;  that  the  adder  of  Terrorism,  like  the 
sling  and  five  smooth  stones  in  the  hands  of 
the  son  of  Jesse,  should  symboUze  in  their 
eyes  the  single-handed  enfranchisement  of  a 
people;  that  Brutus  rather  than  Caesar 
should  be  their  ideal  reformer?  God  forbid 
that  I  should  utter  a  word  in  extenuation  of 
the  criminal  assassin,  but  let  us  not  delude 
ourselves  with  the  idea  that  it  is  the  number 
of  the  combatants  that  distinguish  the  soldier 
from  the  assassin.  One  man  can  make  war 
as  legitimately  as  a  regiment  if  ready  alone 
to  encounter  a  regimented  enemy;  sees  no 
other  or  so  efficient  a  way  of  delivering  his 
fellow  creatures  from  a  degrading  thraldom 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

and  thus  deliberately,  like  any  other  soldier, 
risks  his  life  to  terrify  its  oppressors.  The 
deep  blue  sea  becomes  colourless  in  a  drop  but 
the  drop  is  just  as  salt  as  the  ocean.  Equally 
delusive  is  the  alchemy  by  which  killing  be- 
comes glory  when  the  victims  are  an  army  in- 
stead of  a  captain.  By  what  other  weapon 
than  that  of  terror  can  the  Russian  patriot  at 
the  present  day  strike  an  effective  blow  for 
liberty?  The  army  with  which  Gideon  levied 
war  upon  the  Moabites  was  reduced  from 
30,000  to  300,  "lest,"  said  the  Lord,  the  sol- 
diers "vaunt  themselves  against  me  saying, 
'Mine  own  hand  hath  saved  me.'  " 

When  Rome  was  threatened  by  a  Tuscan 
army  and  the  Roman  Consul  cried: 

"  'The  bridge  must  strait  go  down ; 
For,  since  Janiculum  is  lost. 
Nought  else  can  save  the  town' — 

***** 

"Then  out  spake  brave  Horatius, 

The  Captain  of  the  Gate: 
*To  every  man  upon  this  earth 
Death  cometh  soon  or  late. 

1:753 


PEACE   GIVEN 

And  how  can  man  die  better 

Than  facing  fearful  odds 
For  the  ashes  of  his  fathers, 

And  the  temples  of  his  gods  ?'  " 

When  Moses  saw  one  of  his  oppressed 
brethren  in  Egypt  suffering  wrong  at  the 
hands  of  an  Egyptian  and  avenged  him  by 
smiting  the  wrongdoer,  "he  supposed  that  his 
brethren  understood  how  that  God  by  hi& 
hand  was  giving  them  deliverance;  but  they 
understood  not."^ 

Forty  years  had  to  elapse  before  they  were 
able  to  trust  him  to  lead  them  out  of  Egypt 
and  slavery. 

Jonathan,  the  Son  of  Saul,  was  not  the  last 
person  to  learn  by  experience  that  "it  may  be 
the  Lord  will  work  for  us :  for  there  is  no  re- 
straint to  the  Lord  to  save  by  many  or  by 
few." 

There  is  another  delusion  against  which 
there  is  present  need  that  we  should  be  spe- 
cially on  our  guard.  The  separation  of  bel- 
ligerents does  not  imply  peace.    It  is  not  the 

*  Acts  of  the  Apostles.    Ch,  vii.  25,  26. 

ere] 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

roar  of  the  guns  nor  the  clatter  of  the  swords 
that  constitute  war,  and  when  both  are  silent 
war  may  go  on  even  more  fiercely  than  be- 
fore. Hate,  vengeance,  jealousy,  envy,  cov- 
etousness,  ambition,  treachery,  cowardice, 
survive  in  imimpaired  vigor  with  their  inex- 
haustible arsenal  of  calumny,  misrepresenta- 
tion, intrigue,  corruption,  poisons,  daggers, 
and  conspiracies  at  home  and  abroad,  and 
finally  Peace  Conferences. 

Peace  has  been  described  by  one  of  the 
wisest  of  modern  philosophers  as  "like  the 
spring  which  makes  everything  in  the  world 
rejoice/'  Peace  means  reconciliation.  It 
means  a  desire  to  do  to  others  as  you  would 
wish  them  to  do  under  like  circumstances  to 
you.  The  man  or  nation  at  peace  covets  noth- 
ing of  his  neighbor  and  claims  nothing  to 
which  he  is  not  better  entitled  than  any  other. 
Who  would  pretend  that  the  peace  negotiated 
at  Portsmouth  corresponds  to  any  of  these 
conditions?  It  was  involuntary  on  both  sides 
and  himianly  speaking  it  has  proved  an  inter- 
national calamity.  In  this  peace  Providence 
seems  to  have  visited  the  Russians  with  one  of 

1:773 


PEACE   GIVEN 

the  most  memorable  of  curses  in  letting  "their 
table  before  them  become  a  snare  and  when 
they  are  in  peace  let  it  become  a  trap."^ 

From  his  birth  man  is  providentially  en- 
gaged in  a  continuous  war  with  the  lusts  of 
the  flesh  and  the  pride  of  life.  Jesus  himself 
came  into  this  world  to  bring  not  peace  but  a 
sword  with  which  to  war  against  these  in- 
firmities. Nor  is  the  crown  of  victory  over 
them  ever  awarded  even  to  the  most  regener- 
ate in  this  life.  Jesus  himself  only  achieved 
that  victory  on  the  cross. 

It  is  by  the  reaction  of  nature  only,  not  by 
the  medicine  which  provokes  the  reaction, 
that  bodily  disease  is  cured.  So  it  is  only  by 
the  providential  reaction  of  everlasting  jus- 
tice against  himian  wrongs  that  society  is 
elevated  and  the  two  great  commandments 
acquire  adherents.  No  men  or  nation  that 
wish  to  steal,  rob,  or  murder  can  be  made 
either  honest  or  righteous  by  an  arbitrary  de- 
feat of  their  purposes.  Who  would  have  the 
hardihood  to  pretend  that  a  Hague  Tribunal, 
had  it  been  in  existence  in  1776,  would  have 

^  Psalm  Ixix.  22. 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

given  to  the  North  American  colonists  a  ver- 
dict with  which  the  world  would  be  as  well 
satisfied  as  that  which  was  won  by  the  last 
argument  of  kings  ?  Or  is  it  to  be  supposed 
for  a  moment  that  a  legion  of  Hague  Tri- 
bunals could  have  settled  peacefully  our 
recent  Civil  War  or  prevented  or  delayed  the 
Franco-German  War  long  enough  for  Mr. 
Carnegie  to  recite  the  Lord's  Prayer?  Who 
is  Quixotic  enough  to  suppose,  after  what  has 
occurred  during  the  past  two  years,  that  the 
Russian  hierarchy  can  ever  be  persuaded  or 
forced  to  grant  its  people  a  decent,  even  a 
tolerable,  government  without  bloodshed? 
There  have  been  a  great  many  wicked  wars 
on  one  side  or  the  other,  but  it  is  difficult  to 
name  any  one  important  war  that  did  not  in- 
volve important  results  which  otherwise  could 
not  have  been  realized,  except  after  much  de- 
lay and  at  greater  sacrifices  than  were  ac- 
tually suffered.  The  Russo-Japanese  War 
will  surely  prove  to  be  in  the  long  run  one  of 
the  latter,  though  this  far  it  may  appear  only 
like  the  shirt  of  the  Centaur  Nessus  to  Her- 

1:793 


PEACE   GIVEN 

cules  or  the  shields  of  the  Roman  legions 
to  Tarpeia. 

Of  the  approaching  conference  of  the 
Hague  delegates  our  Secretary  of  State  did 
not  speak  at  the  recent  Carnegie  Hall  revel 
with  the  enthusiasm  which  would  lead  one  to 
suppose  that  the  very  stones  in  the  street 
would  cry  out  if  they  did  not.  The  dispro- 
portion of  bread  to  sack  in  his  introduction  of 
the  subject  was  notable. 

"The  second  conference  is  about  to  meet 
amid  universal  recognition  that  it  is  of 
practical  significance.  It  commands  re- 
spect; its  possibilities  are  the  object  of  so- 
licitude ;  the  resolutions  which  it  may  reach 
are  anticipated  as  of  probable  potency  in 
the  affairs  of  nations ;  it  is  not  regarded  as 
an  occasion  for  mere  academic  discussion, 
but  it  finds  its  place  among  the  agencies  by 
which  the  world  is  governed.  I  cannot 
doubt  that  it  will  accomphsh  much  for  the 
benefit  of  mankind ;  that  in  many  things  it 
will  bring  the  practice  of  nations  into 
closer  conformity  with  those  great  princi- 

[80] 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

pies  of  conduct  to  which  nations  have  ac- 
corded such  ready  assent  in  theory  but  such 
reluctant  compliance  when  their  particular 
interests  are  involved. 

"In  regard  to  the  possibility  of  an  agree- 
ment as  to  the  limitation  of  armed  forces  by 
land  and  the  sea  and  of  war  budgets,  he  is 
as  wary  as  the  colored  brother  who  said  to 
the  snake:  "If  you  '11  let  me  alone  I  11  let 
you  alone" ;  he  would  not  have  his  delegates 
dogmatize  on  these  subjects,  that  in  fact, 
they  concern  us  so  little  that  they  are  prac- 
tically none  of  our  business.  We  have  not 
been  unmindful  of  the  fact  that  the  ques- 
tion is  one  which  primarily  and  in  its  pres- 
ent stage  concerns  Europe  rather  than 
America;  that  the  conditions  which  have 
led  to  the  great  armaments  of  the  present 
day  are  mainly  European  conditions,  and 
that  it  would  ill  become  us  to  be  forward 
or  dogmatic  in  a  matter  which  is  so  much 
more  vital  to  the  nations  of  Europe  than  to 
ourselves.  It  sometimes  happens,  however, 
that  a  State  having  little  or  no  special  ma- 
terial interest  in  a  proposal  can  for  that 

[81] 


PEACE   GIVEN 

very  reason  advance  the  proposal  with  the 
more  advantage  and  the  less  prejudice. 
The  American  Government  accordingly, 
at  an  early  stage  of  the  discussion  regard- 
ing the  programme,  reserved  the  right  to 
present  this  subject  for  the  consideration 
of  the  conference.  Several  European  pow- 
ers have  also  given  notice  of  their  intention 
to  present  the  subject.  It  may  be  that  the 
discussion  will  not  bring  the  second  confer- 
ence to  any  definite  and  practical  conclu- 
sion; certainly  no  such  conclusion  can  be 
effective  unless  it  meet  with  practically 
universal  assent,  for  there  can  be  no  effec- 
tive agreement  which  binds  some  of  the 
great  powers  and  leaves  others  free.  There 
are  serious  difficulties  in  formulating  any 
definite  proposal  which  would  not  be  ob- 
jectionable to  some  of  the  powers,  and  upon 
the  question  whether  any  specific  proposal 
is  unfair  and  injurious  to  its  interests  each 
power  must  be,  and  is  entitled  to  be,  its 
own  judge. 

"Nevertheless,  the  effort  can  be  made ;  it 
may  fail  in  this  conference,  as  it  failed  in 

[82] 


AS   THE  WORLD   GIVETH 

the  first,  but  even  if  it  fails  one  more  step 
will  have  been  taken  toward  ultimate  suc- 
cess. Long  continued  and  persistent  effort 
is  always  necessary  to  bring  mankind  into 
conformity  with  great  ideals." 

No  one  can  gainsay  a  word  of  this;  it  is 
true  as  the  multiplication  table  and — just  the 
kind  of  homely  truth  for  a  little  girl  to  work 
into  a  sampler.  But  while  people  fight  for 
ideals,  it  should  be  remembered  that  ideals  are 
not  the  weapons  with  which  they  fight.  Be- 
sides, an  English  gentleman  who  speaks  with 
authority  has  recently  given  us  to  understand 
that  we  have  no  poets  in  this  country  to  sup- 
ply us  with  ideals,  nor  much  prospect  of  any. 
Therefore,  even  our  accomplished  Secretary  of 
State  does  not  encourage  us  to  expect  that  our 
contribution  to  the  cause  of  Peace  and  the  re- 
duction of  military  and  naval  budgets  will  be 
a  record  one.  I  will  even  allow  myself  to  sus- 
pect that  he  shares  a  quite  prevalent  public 
sentiment  that  Providence,  and  science— one 
of  its  instruments— are  doing  far  more  for 
the  cause  of  Peace  than  will  ever  be  accom- 


PEACE   GIVEN 

plished  by  crying  Peace  where  there  is  no 
peace.  As  hunger  providentially  makes  peo- 
ple industrious  and  frugal  to  relieve  it,  so 
the  increasing  cost  of  war  is  making  friends 
for  peace,  while  Portsmouth  conferences 
Hague  tribunals  or  Carnegie-Hall  revellers 
are  only  making  faces  and  phrases  about  it. 

There  is  no  argument  for  peace  so  unan- 
swerable as  an  empty  exchequer;  and  every 
year  science  and  a  merciful  Providence  are 
shortening  the  possible  duration  of  every 
future  war,  while  its  own  increasing  penalties 
of  blood  and  treasure  are  making  the  nations 
proportionately  less  reckless  in  provoking  one. 
Peace  is  only  welcome  to  the  average  man 
when  he  finds  nothing  in  sight  worth  the  cost 
of  fighting  for  it, — that  is,  when  his  appetites 
are  limited  by  reason  or  controlled  by  neces- 
sity, and  as  President  Roosevelt  suggests  by 
righteousness. 

Centuries  must  elapse  before  the  Hague 
Tribunal  can  settle  any  international  contro- 
versy that  could  not  be  just  as  well  or  better 
settled  by  established  diplomatic  agencies, 
or  such  as,  if  occurring  in  Elihu  Root's  pri- 
vate practice,  would  be  sent  to  a  sheriff's  jury. 

1:84] 


AS  THE  WORLD.  GiVETiHt 

The  International  Hague  Tribunal  had  its 
origin  practically  only  a  few  years  ago  with 
a  dynasty  which  is  said  to  rule  over  one  sev- 
enth of  the  habitable  globe,  nearly  if  not  quite  '^ 
every  acre  of  which  has  been  acquired  by 
predatory  wars.  Ever  since  the  establish- 
ment of  that  Tribunal  Russia  has  been  con- 
tinuously at  war,  but  which  of  the  powers  that 
united  in  recommending  the  Portsmouth 
Conference  ever  suggested  that  the  differ- 
ences between  Russia  and  Japan  should  be 
referred  to  that  Tribunal;  which  of  the 
European  sovereignties  was  endowed  with  a 
brain  so  much  more  fertile  than  prolific  as  to 
take  the  initiative  in  recommending  the 
Portsmouth  Conference;  or  which  even  now 
will  venture  to  denounce  the  torturing  the  in- 
mates of  Russian  prisons  to  force  from  them 
confessions  of  their  own  or  their  comrades' 
mutinous  conduct,  thus  reported  in  the  Even- 
ing Post  so  recently  as  the  23d  April,  1907: 

"M.  Pergament,  a  prominent  lawyer  of 
Kherson,  read  the  reports  of  the  interpella- 
tion committee,  which  contained  details  of 
about  seventy  cases  of  alleged  torture.    It 


^EACE   GIVEN 

was  declared  that  the  victims  were  beaten 
on  sensitive  parts  of  their  bodies  with  Cos- 
sacks' whips,  and  rubber  rods;  that  their 
jJnger  nails  and  hair  were  pulled  out,  etc. 
The  tortures  in  a  number  of  cases  were  pro- 
longed for  eight  or  ten  days.  One  man, 
who  was  only  twenty-two  years  old,  looked 
like  an  old  man  after  having  been  tortured. 
"The  vice-minister  for  the  interior,  M. 
Makaroff,  reported  that  the  charges 
brought  against  the  prison  officials  of  Riga 
in  March  were  shown  to  be  well-founded. 
The  prisoners  were  clubbed  by  the  police 
when  arrested,  and  also  to  force  confessions 
from  them." 

During  the  very  week  in  which  the  prison 
cells  of  St.  Petersburg  were  the  theatres  of 
these  peaceful  amenities,  shiploads  of  foreign 
notabilities  were  imported  into  the  United 
States  to  participate  in  an  international  revel 
in  honor  of  our  apostolate  of  peace. 

Peace  indeed! 

Peace  given  as  the  World  giveth. 

Creating  a  desert  and  calling  it  Peace. 


!'i.«8i8!^^'>i 


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